Peace in a Pirate's Heart
by Scykra
Summary: The Straw Hat crew need a place to rest and they're taken in by a girl who lives with wild animals. Zoro suspects that she's not all that she seems... And a talking wolf? DISCONTINUED -Kai
1. Chapter 1

_Kai here y'all! I'm here with a fanfic for One Piece, Zoro and an OC. Like FSC (Flip Side of the Coin), it starts out bad and gets better later. Another continuing work of mine that began in 6th grade. I apologize for crappiness!_

_Something that I couldn't fit into the description: Ammy and Oki are from Okami, therefore making this a crossover. However, they are not the actual characters from the game. They are only characters modeled after the game's characters._

_..._

_RYUU MADE ME. D:  
_

_I do not own One Piece nor Okami.  
_

_

* * *

_**~Regular POV~**

"LAND! IT'S LAND!" Luffy yelled ecstatically as he ran around the ship, waving his arms. After sailing for three months without spotting an island, the Straw Hat Crew was very happy to see the land that Luffy was screaming about.

"Good thing too," Sanji said as he watched the island come closer. "We were just about to run out of food. Franky, can you make the Thousand Sunny go any faster?"

"I'm trying," Franky called back impatiently. "We'll get there when we get there." Just then, Zoro walked out onto the deck yawning and scratching his head.

"What's the ruckus all about?" he asked sleepily.

"Land Zoro! IT'S LAND!" Luffy pounced on Zoro. Letting out a huge yawn, Zoro side-stepped and let Luffy fall on the ground with a huge crash.

"Luffy! Quiet down already!" Nami shouted, banging the door open. "Usopp has a cold! Let Chopper take care of him in silence!"

"Ha? I thought idiots couldn't catch colds," Zoro said, staring though the open door at the Usopp sniffling in the bed.

"I heard that," Usopp mumbled weakly. Chopper hushed him and placed a towel on his head.

"I guess that means you've never caught a cold, eh?" Sanji smirked at Zoro.

"Shut up, Ero-cook," Zoro snapped back.

"What was that Mariomo-head!" Sanji shouted.

"Seriously, how is anyone supposed to read a book with this noise?" Robin sighed.

"Robin-swan!" Sanji said, delighted. "I'm sorry, I'll shut this idiot up immediately."

"Yohohoho!" Brook laughed as he spread his arms out wide. "How wonderful it is to be approaching land at last!" Zoro blinked as he heard a strange splashing sound. He looked over the side of the ship and saw a person swimming towards the ship.

"The hell is that kid doing?" he muttered. "I've never seen anyone swimming towards a pirate ship. Whatever. I'm not cold hearted enough to leave someone in the water. Luffy, hang onto my swords," he called as he tossed the three swords on deck. He dived into the water and found the person. Tucking the person under his arm, he swam back to the ship.

"Oi, lemme up!" Zoro gasped as he came up for air. Luffy stretched his arms and grabbed onto Zoro.

"I caught a man!" Luffy grinned as he pulled Zoro up. Zoro flew into the air, hung there for a moment, then came plummeting towards the ship.

"Ow... What the hell," Zoro muttered, rubbing his head. "And the kid's a girl, too. You OK?" Zoro asked, looking down at the girl he had picked up from the water.

"Yeah, thanks," she grinned back. Zoro blinked as he realized how young she was, probably no older than twelve.

"What were you doing in the water anyways?" he asked, standing up. The girl also stood up and squeezed the water out of her long black hair, streaked with yellow.

"Oh, yeah, about that," she said, looking up. "You might want to stop the ship before you get any closer to that island. Unless you want to burst into flames?"

"Franky, stop the ship!" Zoro yelled over his shoulder. "Apparently we'll burst into flames unless we don't!" Turning back to the girl, he said, "OK, we've stopped the ship. Now would you mind explaining what in the world this is all about?"

"Um... Long story short, this island doesn't like pirates very much and they start hurling fireballs at the next pirate ship they see," she said. "Dangit, I have water in my eyes," she muttered, rubbing her deep blue eyes. They were almost black.

"Aw... and I was so excited about standing on land again," Luffy said dejectedly.

"But we'll have to stay somewhere," Nami said, watching the Log Pose on her wrist. "We have to wait until the Log Pose memorizes the magnetic fields so we can move on to the next island."

"Well, there's a very small island off the coast of this one," the girl said. "It's so small that its magnetic field is the same as that island's. That's where I live. You can stay over until your Log Pose memorizes the field."

"Really? Thank you," Nami said, sighing with relief. "Oh, but we don't know your name."

"Oh, me?" the girl asked. "I'm Kenya. I know you guys. The Straw Hat Pirates right? You guys are famous." Kenya grinned.

"Nami-chwan! I've made snacks!" Sanji said, dancing in with plates in his hand. "For Robin-swan too!"

"Thanks Sanji," Nami replied. "You should have some, Kenya-san. Sanji's food is really good."

"You're over exaggerating," Sanji said humbly.

"You don't have to call me with honorifics," Kenya answered, helping herself to some of Nami's food. "I'm only eleven after all. Oh, but I'm turning twelve in eleven days."

"What in the world were you doing in the water then?" Robin asked.

"It's what I do," Kenya replied, swallowing. "Living by myself is boring so I decided to start saving pirates from the island. No pirate ship has ever gotten close to the island. They even called it 'The Land of No Pirates'. But anyways, the island I live on is that way." She pointed to the west.

"Thanks again for letting us stay at your island," Nami said, running to the wheel. "I'll need directions every once in a while."

"Don't worry, you can't miss it," Kenya called. "Just keep going west and keep along the coast of the big island. You'll see it eventually."

"I'm cold," Zoro muttered, dripping wet. He shivered as the wind blew.

"Same here," Kenya answered. "I wanna go inside. Ne, Zoro-niichan, can you come with me?"

"Um... sure," Zoro said, sweat dropping_._

"Zoro, I'm coming too!" Luffy shouted as he leaped down from wherever he was and followed Zoro inside.

"Yohoho! The sun is so bright!" Brook laughed. Robin simply read her book as Franky went to visit the sniffling Usopp. Chopper was wetting the towel on Usopp's head. Sanji wandered off into the kitchen to prepare lunch.

That's pretty much where each of the Straw Hat Crew was when they were about to realize just how important Kenya would become.

**~Zoro's POV~**

"Ow... What the hell," I grumbled as I landed hard on the ship. Luffy always over did things. "And the kid's a girl, too. You OK?" I glanced down at the girl.

"Yeah, thanks." She flashed a smile at me. I blinked as I noticed that she was just a kid, maybe twelve years old. I almost thought that her eyes and hair were black, but I realized that her hair had yellow streaks and that her eyes were just a really dark blue.

"What were you doing in the water anyways?" I asked, standing up and brushing myself off. The girl stood up with me and started squeezing the sea water out of her long hair.  
"Oh, yeah, about that," she said nonchalantly. "You might want to stop the ship before you get any closer to that island. Unless you want to burst into flames?"

"Franky, stop the ship!" I yelled. "Apparently we'll burst into flames unless we don't!" I turned back to face the girl. She was watching me in a curious way. "OK, we've stopped the ship. Now would you mind explaining what in the world this is all about?"

"Um... Long story short, this island doesn't like pirates very much and they start hurling fireballs at the next pirate ship they see. Dangit, I have water in my eyes," she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

"Aw... and I was so excited about standing on land again," Luffy said sadly from behind me. _Who cares,_I thought randomly. _We're pirates. We gotta get used to staying at sea for a long time._

"But we'll have to stay somewhere," Nami said, walking up next to me. "We have to wait until the Log Pose memorizes the magnetic fields so we can move on to the next island."

"Well, there's a very small island off the coast of this one," the girl said. "It's so small that its magnetic field is the same as that island's. That's where I live. You can stay over until your Log Pose memorizes the field."

"Really? Thank you," Nami said, sighing with relief. "Oh, but we don't know your name."

"Oh, me? I'm Kenya. I know you guys. The Straw Hat Pirates right? You guys are famous." Kenya grinned.

"Nami-chwan! I've made snacks! For Robin-swan too!" The stupid cook came prancing in like the idiot he was.

"Thanks Sanji," Nami replied. "You should have some, Kenya-san. Sanji's food is really good."

"You're over exaggerating," Sanji said. _Yeah,_I thought. _You are. His food is about as good as is IQ. Which is nothing._

"You don't have to call me with honorifics," Kenya said, starting to eat. "I'm only eleven after all. Oh, but I'm turning twelve in eleven days." _I knew she was around that age. So what was she doing in the water? Playing with the dolphins? I doubt it._

"What in the world were you doing in the water then?" Robin asked, speaking my thoughts.

"It's what I do," Kenya answered. "Living by myself is boring so I decided to start saving pirates from the island. No pirate ship has ever gotten close to the island. They even called it 'The Land of No Pirates'. But anyways, the island I live on is that way." She pointed somewhere. Like I knew where. I'd hate to admit it, but I have absolutely no sense of direction.

"Thanks again for letting us stay at your island. I'll need directions every once in a while." Nami went up to the wheel to start steering.

"Don't worry, you can't miss it," Kenya said calmly, still eating. "Just keep going west and keep along the coast of the big island. You'll see it eventually."

"I'm cold," I grumbled. The wind was blowing and I was soaking wet. I wasn't about to catch a cold like Usopp.

"Same here," Kenya answered. "I wanna go inside. Ne, Zoro-niichan, can you come with me?"

"Um... sure," I said hesitantly. _What's with the niichan? That's just weird._

"Zoro, I'm coming too!" Luffy jumped from who-knows-where and started following me inside.

* * *

_Oh God that was bad. I promise you, the chapters get better... eventually._

_Thanks for reading! Any criticism in your reviews to make it better?_

_~Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hai gaiz~ Kai here again. _

SPACING IS TEDIOUS WORK! AH! *freaks out* - Ryuu

_STFU Ryuu. And sorry about making you do the spacing. But anyways... AMMY! :3 Yeah, Ammy is Ryuu's character in this story, like Kuroki is Ryuu's in FSC (Flip Side of the Coin). I hope this chapter is less crappy... Enjoy~_

_-Kai_

* * *

**Chapter 2  
~Regular POV~**

"You know, you guys are different from all the other pirates I've saved," Kenya said suddenly. Luffy, Zoro, and Kenya were all sitting around the dining room table.

"Really?" Luffy said, spread out on the table. "Sanji! I want food!" he complained.

"Yeah, coming in a minute!" Sanji yelled back from the kitchen.

"Yeah," Kenya said, stifling a sneeze. "You guys are the first pirates who actually believed me and actually took me on their ship. Most of the others didn't believe me and got themselves blown up. That, or they just ignored me when they saw me swimming towards them."

"Well, not all pirates are bad right?" Luffy said, bouncing up and down in his seat as Sanji began serving food.

"Guys! Lunch is ready!" Sanji shouted. In a few minutes, the Straw Hat Crew was all gathered around the table stuffing themselves with food. Kenya sweat dropped as she saw them fight over the food, Luffy being a tangle of arms and legs with Franky. Usopp sat there in uncharacteristic quietness, sniffing every once in a while.

"Um, Sanji-niichan?" she asked a bit hesitantly. "This soup is a bit bland."

"Really?" he asked, sipping it. "Oh, you're right. These idiots just wolf down food like there's no tomorrow so they never tell me if something's wrong."

"I think it's fine!" Luffy broke in, gulping the soup. "I want seconds!"

"Yeah, yeah," Sanji sighed, standing up. "I'll go make some more. But really, we're going to run out by tomorrow with the way you guys eat."

"I'll go help you," Kenya said, standing up and following him into the kitchen.

"Oh... sure," he said absent-mindedly. "Don't break anything." Kenya rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, whatever."

**~Sanji's POV~  
****  
** "Can you cut this up?" I asked Kenya when we were in the kitchen. I handed her a carrot. "Don't cut it too thick or thin. And don't chop your fingers off." I gave her a knife, which she examined.

"It's kinda dull," she said, spinning it in her hand. She gripped it firmly and began dicing the vegetable with such speed that her hand was a blur.

"You're pretty good," I said, handing her another thing to cut up. I picked up the chopped up carrot and dropped it in the soup.

"Well I have to make my own food at home," she said, quickly chopping that up as well. "Can't let myself starve, can I?"

"Can you get the salt for me?" I asked. "It's up there." I nodded up towards the cupboard above us. She barely reached it as she stood on her toes, but she handed the salt shaker to me.

"Don't forget to add more this time," she reminded me.

"Hey... You said you had to make your own food, right?" I asked. "Do you live alone?"

"By human terms... Yeah," she answered. "But I do have a family. I was just about to ask her more when Luffy poked his head into the kitchen yelling, "Sanji, are you done yet!" I sighed and rolled my eyes, lighting a cigarette.

"In a minute. Kenya, go serve the soup."

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**"Not hungry," Usopp murmured, excusing himself from the table. Chopper hurriedly finished his own food, following him.

"Ne... Usopp seems to be getting worse," Nami said worriedly. "Do you think he'll be alright?"

"I'm gonna go take a look," Kenya said suddenly, hopping out of her seat. "Where's Chopper-kun and Usopp-niichan?"

"Zoro, go take her there," Sanji said, pushing Zoro out of his seat with his foot.

"What? Why me?"

"Because you're done with your food! Now go!" Sanji shoved him out the door. Zoro muttered under his breath as he lead Kenya to Usopp's room.  
"In there," he pointed. He wandered off to his room. _(Kai: Or at least, where he thought his room was. I mean, seriously. He has such a bad sense of direction that he gets lost on the ship. You'd think that after three months of living on it, even Zoro would be able to remember where all the rooms are...)  
_  
"Hey, Chopper-kun," Kenya said, opening the door. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Yay! Usopp is better!" Luffy shouted, dancing around the ship. "Kenya, you're awesome!" He leaped down to hug Kenya.

"No, I just got better on my own," Usopp boasted. Chopper's eyes were shining with admiration.

"Can I learn from you?" he asked Kenya eagerly.

"You're doing great yourself," Kenya argued. "Besides, I really only take care of myself."

"Thought you said you had a family?" Sanji asked.

"Yeah, I do have one," Kenya said. "But my mom and dad are dead and my brother refuses to live with me. So I'm all alone." She had a solemn face.

"That's tough," Nami said sympathetically. Kenya snickered.

"That was a lie," she said happily. "But really, I do live alone." She looked out over the sea. "Hey, I see my island! We should get there by the end of the day."

"You're a good liar," Usopp complimented. Sanji and Nami sweat dropped, wondering if that really was a compliment.

"I bet I could aim better with the cannon than you though," he said. Kenya smirked.

"You wanna try?"

"You're on!"

"OK then, I'll explain what we're targeting," she said. "You see that flag out there on the island?" Everyone squinted and they could barely make out the outline of the flag waving in the wind.

"Whoever can hit that from here wins," Kenya said. "Or at least come closer to it. You wanna go first?" Usopp blanched. That was a loooong freaking way, and that flag was tiny. But if she thought she could hit that, she must be crazy. Right?

Right?

"Sure, I'll go first," he said, confident that he would shoot the cannonball closer than she would.

"On second thought, lets go at the same time so we can compare easier," Kenya said thoughtfully. "Anytime you're ready."

"Alright... Ready... Set..."

_**BOOM! BOOM!  
**__**  
**_ "Holy shit!" Sanji yelled, clamping his hands over his ears. "That is LOUD!'' Nami watched the cannonballs fly closer towards the flag through her binoculars.

"Kenya's is going too far to the left!" she called. Usopp smirked. He would win this for sure.

"Wait! What the!" Kenya's cannonball bounced off Usopp's, causing both to explode. Kenya grinned.

"Nami-neesan, watch the fragments," she said. Nami obliged, keeping track of the flying fragments. She gasped with shock when she saw that one of Kenya's fragments fell exactly on the flag, pinning it to the ground.

"Kenya wins!" she shouted.

"Hey, that was luck!" Usopp protested. "One of my fragments could have hit the flag too!"

"Nah, the cannonball was going too far left when my cannonball hit it," Kenya said. "The fragments never would have touched the flag."

"Well, I have one word to say," Sanji said. "That was freaking AMAZING!"

"That's four words you moron," Zoro growled. "Now who was the idiot who woke me up with the cannons?"

"Sorry Zoro-niichan," Kenya apologized with a sheepish grin. "But then again, nothing but cannons can wake you up."

"True that," everyone else agreed while Zoro sweat dropped.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, shouldering his kantanas. "So when are we getting to the freaking island anyways?"

"Couple of hours," Kenya answered. "Be patient. Meanwhile, let's go get dinner."

"LAND! IT'S LAND!" Luffy yelled.

"Oh my god, not this again," Zoro groaned as Luffy ran all over the ship. AGAIN. "I've already been through this once..."

"Yippee!" Luffy yelped as he leaped from the ship to shore. The Thousand Sunny gently bumped against the island's shore as the Straw Hat crew followed Luffy's lead. Kenya stayed on the ship, however, whistling. As she did, everyone looked towards the sky as they heard the screech of an eagle.

"Kairi!" Kenya yelled. "Gimme the glove!" The eagle released a leather glove from its talons, which Kenya picked up and put on her right arm. Kairi, the bird of prey, flew closer and grasped the gloved arm, once again taking to the skies.

"I wanna fly too!" Luffy shouted, jumping up and down. "Lemme fly!" Kenya nodded to Kairi, who let go. Kenya landed lightly on her feet.

"Here," she said, handing Luffy the leather glove. "How strong are your arms? If it isn't very strong, Kairi can accidentally rip it off your body..."

"I'm a rubber man, I'm fine," Luffy said impatiently, shoving his hand into the glove. "Hey eagle!" he yelled, waving his arms in the air. "Let me fly!"  
Kairi let out a short screech that sounded like, "Shut up, you impudent human!"

"I'm flying! I'm flying!" Luffy said ecstatically as Kairi soared through the air, grasping Luffy's arm very tightly.

"That eagle is tame right?" Nami asked, sweat dropping.

"Yup," Kenya said with a grin. "Kairi is like my older brother. He's thirteen."

"Is everyone in your... family animals?" Robin asked. Franky and Brook shaded their eyes as they stared at their captain screaming with happiness in the sky.

"Yeah," Kenya answered. "Should I call my 'mom' for you guys?"

"What's it gonna be this time, a freaking wolf?" Franky asked.

"What's wrong with that?" a voice growled from the woods. Everyone whirled around in surprise to see a shining white wolf with black claws and shimmering blue eyes. The wolf paced towards the group, snarling at all the males near Kenya.

"Hey Ammy!" she said happily. "These are my new pirate friends!" The wolf let out a sigh.

"How many does that make?" the wolf asked. "Twenty one? Twenty two?"

"Nah, twenty three," Kenya said. She noticed everyone staring at her, including Luffy who was now on the ground.

"Is... that wolf... seriously... TALKING!" Nami asked, pointing a shaking finger at the wolf. The wolf snapped at the finger.

"Yup," Kenya said cheerfully, taking the glove from Luffy's hands. "This is Amaterasu, or Ammy for short. She's 300."

"... Days old?" Brook asked doubtfully.

"Nope. Years."

"Do you insist on staring at me like some beast from your nightmares?" Ammy asked with a sigh. "What Kenya failed to explain is that I ate the Seikitsu Fruit, or the Life Fruit. I can't die."

"... Life story as an explanation please?"

"You really are imbeciles," Ammy said, rolling her eyes. "Do I have to spell everything out for you? My pack had been starving so when I found this weird sun shaped fruit, my pack ate it. However, my mate insisted that I eat most of it, so I lived longer than he did. Fifteen years ago, my pack was massacred by wolf hunters. My mate and I, the only survivors, escaped to this island. Two years after that, we found Kenya. My mate died two years after we found that. And so I acted as her mother figure. We have other animal friends, such as Kairi, who you've met. And before you ask, none of the others can talk. Only I can. After living for 300 years, I learned." Luffy stared at her with his mouth hanging open.

"Is he a retard or something?" Kenya whispered to Zoro.

"I dunno," he answered. "He might be."

"That. Is. AWESOME!" Luffy yelled, leaping into the air. "Kenya, you have an awesome life!"

"Hey there, don't call Kenya by her first name," Ammy snapped. "No man can get close to Kenya unless I permit it! And that includes you, Roronora Zoro!" Zoro blinked in surprise as he heard his name.

"Ammy knows the names of all the pirates ever," Kenya said proudly. "Because she really has nothing better to do." All of the Straw Hat crew sweat dropped, save for Luffy and Chopper who were staring at Ammy with eyes of admiration.

"Ammy, can you take these guys to the house and lead them to their rooms?" Kenya asked. "I'm gonna go with Kairi and find the others."

"If you insist," the wolf replied with a sigh. Robin noticed a necklace with a fang hanging from the wolf's neck.

"Is that fang...?" she trailed off suggestively.

"Yes, this is the fang of my deceased mate," Ammy said, holding it up with a paw. "If you have any more questions, ask along the way to the house. I'm hungry and I don't want to stand around here answering everything you have to ask." The wolf lead the group into the forest, leaving Kenya with Kairi. The eagle screeched impatiently.

"Hush, Kairi," Kenya murmured. "We'll leave the choice to them... No matter how much I want it myself."

* * *

_OMG another cliffie! Don't you just hate cliffhangers? That's why I'm so... bad at them. XP_

_Anyways, reviews?_

IF YOU DON'T REVIEW, I SHALL STALK YOU AND TORTURE U IN MANY MANY WAYS!...I DON'T MEAN IN THAT WAY PPl! :D -Ryuu

_She doesn't mean any of that.. I'm OK if you don't review._

_See ya, thx for reading~_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)_


	3. Chapter 3

T-T MY FINGERS HURT! AND DAMN DID THAT TAKE A LONG TIME! BUT IT WAS WORTH HELPIN' OUT MY LIL SIS~ Ryuu

_Yush, Ryuu is so nice. And this was a super long chapter too... They'll only get longer from now on._

_Yeah, so this chapter had a few pictures, and Ryuu did her best to describe them to you. I thank her a billion times for the work she did on this chapter._

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

* * *

**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
** "... So... Do you guys live in a house or what?" Luffy asked, looking around at the forest surrounding them. I rolled my eyes, sighing. Of all the questions...

"Yes, we live in a house," I answered.

"Are we there yet?" Chopper asked excitedly. It seemed that he thought of me as "cool and awesome". Wonderful. Just what I wanted. Another idiot admirer.

"Five more minutes." I waited for the flood of questions to start, just like it always did...

"So what kinds of animals live with ya?"

"How big is the house?"

"Do all the animals have names?"

"Doesn't Amaterasu mean death?"

"Where did you find the Devil Fruit?"

"Are there any ruins on this island?"

"Where's the house?"

"How can Kenya hit a flag with a cannonball?"

"How long does it take to memorize the magnetic field?"

"You know what?" I snapped, turning around. "Take turns. One question at a time. In the order of Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and Brook."

"What animals live with you, Kenya, and Kairi?" Luffy asked.

"One that likes to eat rubber men and others that I can't tell you at the moment," I told him. If he was going to be that annoying, which he was, then might as well scare him a bit.

"Don't have one at the moment," Zoro said, watching the sky with his arms folded behind his head.

"How long does it take for the Log Pose to memorize the magnetic field?" Nami asked.

"About nine days," I replied. "Which is when Kenya's birthday is. You might as well stay for the party."

"So how is Kenya's aim so good?" Usopp asked grudgingly. I snickered. Kenya had gone and beat someone again, it seems.

"You'll see when we get to the house," I said. Oh, they will see. And they will experience it.

"Where on the island did you find the Seikitsu Fruit?" Sanji wondered.

"I found it in the center of the island, which is where we're headed towards. And we'll be there in about two more minutes."

"Does your name mean death?" Chopper said curiously.

"No," I replied, surprised. "Where did you get that idea? My name means Sun Goddess."

"Have you found any ruins on the island?" Robin asked. Of course she would ask that.

"Actually, there is one," I answered truthfully. "We've found a stone wall with inscriptions on it. And Kenya is quite skilled in reading it apparently. But she's so busy with other things that she's never gotten a chance to read the entire thing. It's quite large. But anyways, we've arrived." I grinned with satisfaction as the pirates stared at our home with open mouths.

"This is a house?" one of them asked weakly.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
** "Kairi, do you think you can go faster?" Kenya shouted over the whooshing wind. The eagle screeched in reply and flapped its wings. Beneath the two were hundreds of animals, from fish to bears to sparrows. And they were all running, flying, swimming to the "house".

"What the hell is that noise?" Zoro asked irritably as he turned around. He sweat dropped as he saw the hoard of animals racing towards them. Ammy glared at the animals.

"Shut up," she snapped, snarling. At her command, there was sudden silence as all the animals froze. They could have been statues.

"How many animals are there?" Usopp asked meekly, hiding behind Luffy at the sight of bears.

"Over a hundred, I know that much," Kenya answered as she dropped to the earth. Kairi screeched an affirmative, perching on her gloved arm.  
"We don't keep up with all of them," Ammy said. "But they keep up with us. Mainly because they get a free meal and house. But they gotta live with my rules if they're gonna live with us at all."

"So... This... 'House'... How...?" Franky asked shakily, once again turning to the 'house'. Truthfully, it was more of a dojo. And a mansion. Combined.  
Huge was what it was.

"I built it," Kenya said matter-of-factly. "Took me a good eight years too."

"By yourself? Now there's something that chills your bones!" Brook said incredulously. "Yohoho! Skull joke!"

"Of course, most of the animals helped," Kenya said. "Especially Ammy. She kept all of the animals in line, so nobody died."

"Right... Died..." Usopp muttered, keeping a wary eye on the predators.

"Ammy, can you go and fetch Kyuubou and Kyonda?" Kenya asked. "I'm gonna go show these guys to their rooms."

"Fine, fine," the silver wolf replied, walking into the crowd of animals.

"OK, follow me," Kenya said, walking into the huge mansion-dojo-house. The Straw Hat crew obliged, sweat dropping when they found out that the interior was a billion times bigger than it seemed on the outside. Being made of wood, it wasn't the fanciest thing in the world, but it was amazing to look at nonetheless. After winding through many rooms and hallways, they finally came to the smaller part of the mansion-dojo-house.

"You guys have nine people right?" Kenya asked, quickly doing a head-count. "Perfect. I'll take a room here then. Pick your room," she grinned, gesturing to a hallway with five doors on either side.

"Mine's this one," she pointed, the one nearest to the group on the right. "So all the other rooms are free. They're all pretty much the same. They have a bed, a dresser, a closet, and a window. Don't ask me why there's a dresser and a closet because I have no idea."

Luffy decided to take the room directly across from Kenya's, with Nami's room next to his. Zoro took the room next to Kenya's, with Usopp's room on the other side. Across from Usopp's room was Sanji's living quarters, which was between Nami's and Robin's rooms. Across from Robin's room was Chopper's room, which was next to Usopp's and Brook's room. Franky took the room in the far left, next to Robin's room.

"When was the last meal we had?" Franky asked tiredly.

"Dinner on the ship last night," Sanji replied. "You guys hungry? I can make breakfast right now."

"This is my house, I make the food," Kenya broke in. "I'll be ready in a minute. You guys get comfortable in your rooms." She skipped off, yelling for Ammy.

"If you're completely shocked, say aye," Usopp said.

"Aye," replied the crew. Luffy grinned.

"This is getting interesting!"

**~Zoro's POV~  
****  
** "I'm going to sleep," I said, standing up from the dinner table. No one really noticed. They were all busy finishing their dinner. I left the kitchen, headed towards my room. Ever since Kenya arrived on our ship, our lives have gotten pretty loud for normal days. I've only gotten one nap in the past three days.

"Zoro-niichan." I nearly jumped, whirling around. There was Kenya, grinning at me. It was uncanny the way the yellow streaks in her hair burned like flames in the darkness and how her dark blue eyes glowed. Freaky was what it was.

"Yeah, what do you want?" I asked with a sigh. "Next time you want something, don't sneak up on me."

"Sorry," she said apologetically. "But do you mind helping me with something?" I blinked.

"Sure..." Kenya grinned.

"Awesome! Kyuubou, Kyonda, Zoro-niichan is gonna help us," she giggled. A fox and ferret appeared from somewhere, snuggling up with her.

"Right, I haven't shown you guys these two," Kenya said, realizing. "Kyuubou is the fox and Kyonda is the ferret. They've been with me all my life, along with Kairi and Ammy. They're like my closet siblings, you could say."

_ Even her pets are freaky, _I thought with a sigh. The fox was the color of fire, and its fur was like flames too. I guess its eyes were kinda creepy too, one yellow and the other green. The ferret, or Kyonda as she called it, was the scary one. It camouflaged so well with its surroundings that I hardly realized it was there. All I saw was a pair of floating purple eyes at first.

"So what do you want me to help you with?" I asked, sighing.

"I'll tell you when everyone's gone to bed," she said. "You can sleep in the meantime." She walked away, and it seemed like the darkness consumed her.

"I'm going crazy," I murmured to myself. "Wonder what she needs me for?"

**~Regular POV~  
****  
** "Is everyone asleep?" Kenya whispered to Kyuubou and Kyonda. The two nodded. She grinned, marching out of her room and straight into Zoro's.

"Zoro-niichan, wake up!" she hissed, shaking him. Grumbling, he sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Whaddya want?" he asked, slurring his words. Kenya quickly whispered some words in his ears.

"That's what you wanted me for?" he asked incredulously. "It's stupid, but I'll do it."

"Great," Kenya said happily. "All you have to do is open the doors. Got it?"

"I'm never going to be able to sleep tonight," Zoro muttered in response. "Yeah, yeah. I got it." Very quietly, he walked around the hallway, opening all the doors. Kenya followed him, placing several stacks of pillows in each room. Then she tossed a pillow onto Nami's face.

"Alright, who threw it!" Nami demanded, bursting out of her room. Kenya pointed to Usopp's room, which Nami promptly threw a pillow into. Usopp yelped as it smacked him in the face, throwing it into the room across from his. Sanji woke up growling, shoving the pillow off his bed. He marched into Usopp's room and began beating him with another pillow.

"PILLOW FIGHT!" Kenya yelled with glee. Zoro sighed, shaking his head. There would be no rest tonight...

**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
** I was just about to go to sleep when I heard a bunch of yelling from Kenya's hallways. Snarling, I ran towards the source of the noise. If they were throwing a party at this time of night, even if they were Kenya's friends, I was ready to throw them off the island one by one.

Just as I opened the door to their hall, a pillow can flying my way. I dodged it easily, twitching with anger. Everyone was frozen, all holding pillows to throw at each other. The barbaric and idiot game called a pillow fight.

"What time do you think it is?" I barked. The little reindeer called Chopper meeped.

"If I hear another sound from here, I'm kicking all of you out," I growled, leaving. Now I might get some peace and quiet.

No chance.

Three minutes later, just as I was approaching my room, I began to hear the yelling and thwacking again. Barely keeping myself from roaring in anger and irritation, I marched back to the hall, pounced on the nearest human, which happened to be Usopp, and howled in his face. Kenya winced slightly, Usopp fainted, and the rest of the crew fled to their rooms. I dragged the unconscious idiot to his room, flinging him onto his bed.

"Kenya, I really don't want to do that again," I grunted, turning to her. She nodded, still wincing.

"Sorry that I yelled," I said softly. She nodded, and I departed for my room.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
** "How many people didn't participate in the pillow fight yesterday?" Ammy asked as the Straw Hat crew sat down at the dining table. Kenya strolled in slowly, carefully balancing several plates.

"Sanji, a little help here?" she asked sarcastically. He lifted three of the plates off of her, setting them in front of Ammy, Nami, and Robin.

"Ladies first," he announced.

"I didn't," Zoro said with a huge yawn. Despite getting some sleep, he still felt tired.

"It's true, I kinda forced him," Kenya admitted sheepishly.

"That's one crew member who isn't getting kicked off the island," Ammy grumbled.

"Wolf-san, if you don't mind, I would like to go with Kenya to see the ruins on this island," Robin said. Ammy shrugged, replying with a simple, "Do what you want."

"Well, I have to go fix the ship," Franky said with a sigh, standing up from the table. Ammy made a disgusted face at his outfit. "The ship got pretty banged up." He left the room, only to return several seconds later asking for directions. With Ammy and Usopp accompanying him, he left the dojo-mansion. Brook and Chopper decided to go explore the island a bit, leaving Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Sanji by themselves in the mansion.

"I'm bored," Luffy whined. Nami ignored him, studying a map. Zoro decided to go sleep for a while as Sanji went to see what the kitchen was like. Half an hour later, just as Luffy was going to look for everyone else, Kenya returned with Robin.

"Who wants to go to the training area with me?" Kenya asked cheerfully.

"Me! Me! Pick me!" Luffy yelled, bouncing up and down. Sanji declined, saying he would rather stay with Nami and Robin, but Zoro decided to accompany Kenya and Luffy. Kenya led them outside into an open field with no vegetation whatsoever. In fact, there was anything at all.

"So what do we do here?" Zoro asked boredly, watching Kenya stamp all over the ground in search of something. Luffy decided to do whatever she was doing, and nearly jumped when he heard a metal clang as he stomped down.

"Move," Kenya told him, quickly running to where he was. She brushed the dirt off of the area he stepped on, revealing a metal door. She opened it and slid down, ordering Zoro and Luffy to stand off to the side. After several minutes of waiting, Luffy got impatient and opened the metal door to follow Kenya.

"Oi!" Zoro yelled, pulling Luffy back just as a spiked pillar shot out of the ground, barely missing Luffy. Kenya hopped out of the metal door as several other iron pillars came from the ground.

"This is training," Kenya said with a grin. "These pillars can come out from anywhere." Several of the already present pillars retreated underground.

"Keep dodging them. You're allowed to break them as well. Go for it!" Kenya giggled as she sidestepped a pillar that missed her by a hair.

"Gomu Gomu Pistol!" Luffy yelled, punching a pillar. "Ow..." The spiked iron pillar was barely dented. Zoro attempted to slice them up with his  
swords, but seeing as he hadn't mastered the ability to cut iron yet, his swords did no more than Luffy's fists had.

"You're supposed to use your brain and smash the spikes," Kenya said, delivering a nearby spike a swift kick. The spike crumbled easily, leaving a hole in the pillar.

"I see!" Luffy exclaimed, quickly demolishing all the spikes on a pillar. "Then it's easier to destroy!" Kenya nodded and smiled, crushing the spike less pillar with another kick.

"You're getting the hang of it," Kenya grinned, hopping on top of an iron pillar. She leaped onto another one as it withdrew into the ground.

"There's also a pattern to how the pillars appear," Zoro noted, destroying one without even looking.

"This is getting too easy for you two," Kenya said, hopping on top of the metal door. "You guys can deal with these while I change the setting of the training." Zoro and Luffy said nothing as Kenya retreated into the underground, occupied with the pillars. They both crashed into the ground when the pillars that they were targeting disappeared into the earth.

"What the!" Zoro scrambled out of the way as a sword fell from the sky, nearly stabbing him.

"Zoro!" Luffy called, running to where he was. "What's with these falling swords?"

"How should I know!" the swordsman yelled, dodging another sword.

"That last training session was to test your power." Zoro and Luffy jumped as they heard Kenya's voice behind them.

"This time, we're testing your speed," she giggled, skipping away. With her eyes closed, she easily dodged all the swords as though she were dancing.

"Of course, you can always knock them away," she added, grabbing a fallen sword and blocking all that fell towards her. "But where's the fun in that?"

"So how did you get all these swords to fall from the sky?" Luffy asked, sidestepping a sword.

"Lots of hard work," came Kenya's simple reply.

"How many training settings do you have?" Zoro asked, sweatdropping. Kenya paused to think.

"Um... over a hundred," she answered, kicking a sword away. "Do you want to try them all?"

"Hell no."

"What the..." As the trio stepped out of the forest, Franky was amazed and shocked to see that the Thousand Sunny was completely repaired. And repaired better than ever.

"Amazing. Who did this?" Usopp wondered aloud. The wolf that had accompanied them barked out a laugh. Or as close to a laugh as a wolf can get.

"Kenya, Kenya, Kenya..." She shook her head. "She always has the habit of fixing the ships of sailors that visit. Well, you guys don't have to worry about the ship anymore. She'll keep it in top condition as long as you guys are here." She paused thoughtfully. "If you guys are going to stay until Kenya's birthday, you might want to go to the main island and get her some gifts before you leave."

"But don't the people on the main island hate pirates?" Franky asked.

"I don't wanna go there if they're going to be hunting us down," Usopp said shakily. Ammy laughed again.

"Do you think that they will hurt you if they know us?" she asked. "Kenya often visits the island and is quite friendly with the people there. She promised that if any pirates come to the main island that are her guests, the pirates won't hurt anyone. So as long as you know Kenya, you're safe."

"In that case, I wouldn't mind visiting once in a while," Usopp said. "Should we head back now that we've checked the ship?"

"Yeah," Ammy said, looking up at the sky. "I have a feeling that it's going to rain soon."  
**  
**Meanwhile, back at the house, Nami was having the same thought.

"Everybody better get indoors soon or they'll be soaked," she said. Just as she said those words, Ammy's group walked in.

"So now that's left is Kenya and the others," Nami said. "They went training so they should be back soon." Ammy shook her furry head.  
"If they went out training, then they might not come back until next morning," she said. "Kenya trains in any type of weather and when she does go training, she usually stays there for at least a day. She's capable in a lot of different areas."

"I dunno," Sanji said, scratching his head. "Luffy gets hungry really easily and he probably wants to come back for dinner. They didn't take any food with them."

"There's lots of fruits in the forest so they don't have to worry about food," Ammy said. "There's also a river for water, so they don't have to bother with that either. All the pirates she's taken out for training always stayed training for at least a day, and they always came back stronger. You guys might want to go training with her sometime. You should also visit the island every once in a while." She explained how they were safe from the islanders as long as they knew Kenya. To show their friendship with Kenya, Ammy painted a symbol on each of their left shoulders with black paint. The symbol was a star in a circle. With clear paint, she painted an X over the symbol. The X became invisible once the paint dried.

"Show the islanders that symbol and they won't harm you," Ammy said. "They're going to shine a light over the symbol to see the X, so don't mind them if they suddenly grab your arm. Now that that's out of the way, who wants to come shopping for presents with me?"

"Presents?" Brook asked.

"Didn't Kenya already tell you? It's her birthday in a couple days."

"I suppose we should buy her some presents considering all that she's done for us," Robin said thoughtfully. "How about everybody buys one present for her?"

"Sounds good to me," Chopper said cheerfully. No one else replied. They were too busy thinking of what to get Kenya.

"Dammit, is it possible for you guys NOT to get lost!" Ammy demanded angrily, frustrated after having to hunting for Usopp only to lose Brook, Franky, and Sanji. After finding those three, Nami had been lured into a shop where the prices were insanely low and Chopper had wandered into a candy store. Eventually, the Straw Hat crew had all wandered off to their own place with a mad, in more than one sense of the word, wolf chasing them all down.

"Sorry," Nami said sheepishly. "But you better be glad that Zoro isn't here. He's so directionally challenged that he climbed a clock tower to get north." Ammy banged her head on a wall.

"Your crew is insane," she muttered. "But that just suits Kenya even better." She turned her attention to the group that had finally stayed in one place. "Listen, you big buffoons. We're shopping TOGETHER. We're looking for Kenya's presents TOGETHER. If one of you steps out of the 'nearby' zone, I will throw you back into the 'nearby' zone without any concern for your welfare when you crash into the window of the nearest shop. Now all of you shut up and follow me." She turned and snapped at Robin, who Ammy had deemed too close to the border of the 'nearby' zone. Robin immediately stepped into the zone.

"Good. Now lets go."

"Ah, that was fun!" The group, having returned from their shopping, entered the house, finding that Zoro, Luffy, and Kenya still haven't returned from their training.

"I'm gonna go training with them," Sanji said. "Ammy, do you know where they are?"

"Considering that it's the second day, I would assume that they're inside," she said. She gave him directions to the dojo and he went off, with Usopp and Brook following him. That was how their days went. Ammy would take the pirates that weren't training shopping, and once they returned a few would go training. Eventually, Ammy could finally enjoy peace and quiet as all the Straw Hats were out training.

"What is Kenya doing?" Ammy growled. "It's her birthday tomorrow and she's still not back with those fools!" Just as those words left her mouth, Kenya entered the room, followed by a very tired, beaten up, and hungry pirate crew.

"Where were you?" Ammy snarled. Kenya shrugged.

"Training, what else?" she answered. "Anyways, these guys are starving. I'm gonna go fix them some 'proper food' as they put it. I don't see what's wrong with fruits and nuts." She entered the kitchen, and the Straw Hat pirates eagerly seated themselves at the table.

"Tomorrow is her birthday, so you better have your present ready," Ammy hissed. Everyone nodded except for Luffy and Zoro, who exchanged confused glances.

"Presents?" Luffy whispered back. Ammy groaned and smacked her paw to her forehead, a very human gesture.

"Oh, I forgot that you two didn't come shopping with us," she muttered. "We'll have to go today. I'll paint the symbol on your arms and take you to the main island as soon as you're done with lunch." Still confused, Luffy and Zoro nodded.

**~Ammy's POV~  
**  
I have no idea how it happened. I already knew that Zoro had a ridiculously horrible sense of direction. I was keeping my eye on him. And when I keep my eye on something, it never leaves my sight.

"So how in the world did I manage to lose him!" I snarled, racing through the streets. I skidded to a stop when I realized that I lost Luffy as well.  
"Damn it!" I growled, spinning around. It was hard to find a certain scent because of all the smells of food. "The glutton!" I muttered, following Luffy's scent into a restaurant. I found him helping himself to heaps of meat.

"Moron, we have to find Zoro!" I grunted, dragging him away. The owner of the place was about to complain about us dining and dashing, but obviously realized that it wasn't wise to mess with a pissed off, over sized wolf.

"Meat..." Luffy whined.  
"You can have your meat when we find Zoro," I snapped. "So help me find him!"

"OK!" He took a deep breath and yelled, "ZORO! WHERE ARE YOU!"

"Idiot!" I yelled, smacking him on the head. "That's not going to work! Come on!" I dragged him off, following Zoro's scent.

**~Zoro's POV~  
****  
**"Eh... Wasn't I just here? Or was I?" I blinked as I turned a corner to find a very familiar scene. "I think I remember seeing that guy there... Nope, it just looks the same." I turned another corner and found a man trying to sell some kind of fruit. I passed by him, but seeing the fruit made something click in my mind.

"That looks somewhat familiar," I muttered. "Those patterns..." I whirled around and stared at it incredulously. "Is that...? That's a Devil Fruit!"

"Eh!" The man trying to sell the fruit stared at me in shock, then looked at the fruit. His eyes widened with realization. "I can't believe I was trying to sell this!" he yelped dropping it like the fruit bit him.

"Why did you drop it?" I asked, picking the Devil Fruit up. "Don't you want it?" The man shook his head furiously.

"You're a pirate outsider, so you wouldn't know," he said, checking the symbol on my arm. "On this island, Devil Fruits are considered as terrible as pirates. And we certainly do not like pirates very much." He paused, then added, "Of course, the pirates that Kenya-chan befriends are certainly friendly enough. They keep to their side of the promise, and we keep to ours. Kenya-chan is very special to us because she has helped us with many things on this island, so we wouldn't dare hurt her friends. She also tamed that wolf-mother of hers that used to wander around the island." The man suddenly turned thoughtful and almost forgot that I was there, except for that I asked him a question.

"So what will you do with that?" I asked, gesturing to the Devil Fruit. The man looked shocked.

"Oh, you can have it if you want," he said, handing me the fruit. "I certainly don't want it. I just found this on Kenya-chan's island one time during my visits. Say hello to Kenya-chan, will you?" he called as I thanked him and walked away.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**Zoro walked away holding his free Devil Fruit with no idea what to do with it. He sweat dropped as he felt a blood thirsty presence behind him. He had a lurking feeling that it might belong to Ammy.

"You stupid bastard!" she snarled. "I told you to follow us! Do you have any idea how hard it was to track your scent down in all these other smells!"

"Eh... Sorry."

"Putting that aside," the wolf said with a sigh, "What's that you have?"

"Oh, this?" Zoro looked down at the fruit in his hands. "It's a Devil Fruit."

"What?" Ammy came closer to the fruit and sniffed it. "It does have a similar scent to the Devil Fruit that I ate..." The wolf blinked. "We need to go back home now. Do you guys have your presents?"

"No."

"OK then," Ammy sighed. "I'll tell you what to get her. There are two things that Kenya wants most..."

**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
**I creeped into the hall where the Straw Hat pirates rested early in the morning, even before Kenya, who was an early riser, was awake.

"You!" I hissed. "Straw hat! Wake up! We have to get ready for Kenya's birthday party."

"Eh?" he muttered, half asleep. "I need to eat..." I rolled my eyes.

"You can eat as much as you want at the party," I whispered. "Wake the rest of your crew up and meet in the kitchen."

"Kay," he murmured, crawling out of his bed.

"And quietly!"

**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I woke up early, as usual. Yawning and stretching, I walked out into the hall to find all the rooms empty. I smiled. Ammy must be planning another surprise party for me. It happened every year. So knowing this, I purposely avoided entering the kitchen where I knew Ammy was preparing the party.

"Luffy-niichan! Zoro-niichan! Nami-neechan! Everyone, where are you?" I called, playing along. I already knew that they would be in the kitchen with Ammy, but every year I pretended to be oblivious. It was one of the few fun things that Ammy did without me asking her to do. "Kyuubou, Kyonda, do you guys know where they are?" The fox and ferret scurried up to me, shaking their heads. I smiled, knowing that they did know where Ammy was hiding the crew, but I didn't say anything.

Wondering what Ammy's reaction would be if I entered the kitchen before they were prepared, I toyed with the idea of getting something to eat. Deciding that it might be fun, I stepped into the kitchen.

"Ah, Kenya-chan," Franky said, blinking. Ammy leaped from across the room and pinned me to the ground.

"Do not come in here," she growled. "Until I say that it's OK." I smiled.

"OK, OK," I said, standing up. "But I'm hungry..."

"The cook will prepare you food," Ammy said, entering the kitchen. "Don't enter," she said, her eyes narrowing. I nodded, still grinning.  
"Well that was amusing," I said to Kyuubou and Kyonda. My eyes glowed red briefly as I continued to smile. "But Ammy should know by now, it's almost impossible to keep a secret from me..."

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**Zoro glanced down as something bumped his leg. "Oh, it's you. Um... what was your name again? Kyonda I think it was?" The ferret squeaked. Zoro blinked. For a moment, he thought that the ferret had red eyes.

"Kyonda, can you call Kenya in a few minutes?" Ammy said. "We're almost done." Kyonda nodded, walking out of the kitchen. Ammy glanced over her shoulder, making sure that all the decorations and presents and whatnot were all in place. Above her head hung a banner that declared, "Happy Birthday Kenya!" with pink roses aligned on the edges. Other roses were artistically scattered everywhere, filling the kitchen with their aroma.

"Ammy, I'm hungry," Kenya said, entering the kitchen with Kyuubou behind her and Kyonda on her shoulder. She blinked when she saw the decorations, then grinned at Ammy. "Thanks for preparing all this," she said, giving the wolf a hug.

"Thank them too," Ammy said after Kenya released her, nodding towards the Straw Hat crew. Kenya's grin grew.

"Thank you," she said, giving each of them a hug.

"Hey, you have to see your presents before you thank us," Usopp said.

"Presents too?" Kenya laughed. Ammy nodded.

"Well then," Brook said, tipping his hat. "I shall give you my present first. During our training, you have shown me that you are very talented in music. As such, I present you with this." He pulled out a brand new violin and bow.

"Wah... I've always wanted one!" Kenya exclaimed, taking the instrument in her hands. "Thank you very much, Brook-san!"

"I'm next," Franky declared. He handed Kenya a small box similar to a Rubik's cube. "It's a puzzle box. If you can solve the puzzle, then you can open it."

"Hn, I see," Kenya said, sliding part of it. "Thanks, Franky-niichan."

"My present is inside," Robin added. "But I'll tell you what my present is now. While I was exploring the ruins on this island, I saw a message that Wolf-san's mate left for you and Wolf-san. Because you never really explored the ruins, I knew you haven't seen it yet. I've written what Wolf-san's mate told you two. When you figure out how to open the box, you can see what I wrote." Kenya grinned.

"Thank you, Robin-neechan. It means a lot to me." Kenya continued staring at the box, already thinking about how to open the box. "I wonder what Oki-san wanted to say."

"Kenya, I got you this," Chopper said, drawing her attention away from the box. He gave her a book. "Ammy-san said that you wanted a Devil's Fruit, but I couldn't find one. So I got you the next best thing." Kenya checked the title and saw that it said, Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. "It has all the known fruits and a description of their powers.

"Chopper-kun!" Kenya exclaimed. "Where did you find this? I've been looking everywhere for it! Thank you so much!" She gave Chopper another hug.

"Kenya-chan," Sanji said, bringing out a box. "Seeing as how we're both cooks, I thought about what I would've wanted, and I got you a brand new set of knives." Kenya's eyes glowed with delight.

"These knives are sharp," she commented. "Very, very sharp. I like sharp things." The crew, as well as Ammy, sweat dropped at the last statement.

"Kenya, because I didn't really know what you wanted, I got you a choker," Usopp said, holding out a dark blue choker with a star-shaped sapphire on it. "And it was in a set, so there are two others." In his other hand were two other chokers, also black. One had a piece of sun-shaped gold, and the other had a moon-shaped diamond. Kenya smirked, looking at Ammy.

"This one is for you," she said, giving the one with the sun on it to Ammy. "The star one is mine... So the moon one is..."

"Oki's," Ammy finished quietly. Kenya nodded.

"You have three presents left," Nami noted. "Here's mine. I noticed that you didn't have that many clothes, so I decided to get you a dress." The ocean blue dress had a corset like body that poofed out around the waist and fell to the floor. The front of the dress was short while the back was long. The dress also came with sky blue gloves from the fore arm to the wrist.

**~Zoro's POV~  
****  
**As the rest of the crew handed Kenya their presents, I watched Kenya's eyes. After training with her for nine days, I noticed that while she may act cheerful and happy, her eyes were almost always unfocused and distracted. If you watched her eyes, you would realize that she always looked bored with the world, as if nothing was interesting enough for her. I had only seen her excited during the pillow fight.

Other than when Robin told her about her present, and when the wolf mentioned the name of her mate while Usopp gave his presents, Kenya's eyes didn't show a spark of interest. _The only reason why she even tries to pretend that she's interested and happy is because she knows that they mean the best, _I thought. I blinked as everyone turned to me expectantly, all except Kenya, who still seemed uninterested in what the rest of the world was doing.

"Oh, right," I muttered, grabbing the Devil's Fruit that I had received the day before. "Chopper got you the next best thing to a Devil's Fruit, so I decided that I would get you the best thing." Kenya's eyes widened with realization, and for the first time that day, her eyes were excited and happy. Hiding a smile, I handed her the fruit. "I'm not sure what its power is, so you'll have to look it up in that book." Kenya flashed a genuine smile at me and hugged me tightly.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she exclaimed, immediately opening the book. She flipped through the pages, searching for a picture that matched the fruit that she held in her hand. "Found it! 'The Kuki Kuki no Mi, as its name indicates, is a fruit that allows the user to manipulate the air. The user is able to turn their body parts into the air, purify polluted air, as well as other abilities'," she read aloud. Her eyes practically glowed with delight.

"Wah, amazing!" Luffy said, his eyes shining as well. "Kuki Kuki no Mi! That's awesome!" He grinned and said, "So it's time for my present now!" Luffy whispered something in Kenya's ear and her eyes widened with shock, disbelief, and amazement.

"Are you serious!" she yelled, wrapping her arms around Luffy's neck. Luffy's grin grew and answered, "I'm serious. I want you to be one of our nakama!"

* * *

_Yaaay! And now we're all happy and joyous. Kenny is part of the SH crew now. Wonder what kind of adventures they'll have... :3_

_Story only goes uphill from here, so if you've gotten so far, you may as well keep on reading!_

_Reviews/criticism?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	4. Chapter 4

x3, this chapter has a ton of humor and blood shed~ (ok maybe not that much but there's some) Here ya go sis, I spaced everythin' for you! ~Ryuu

_Ooo, I remember typing this chapter! It's super long, but it's so fun~ Humor and a bit of scary Kenya to top it off! Gotta be one of my fave chapters in the earlier days. :3_

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

* * *

**Chapter 4  
****~Regular POV~  
****  
**The crew was shocked momentarily, because they had heard nothing of it beforehand, but one by one they realized that it was Luffy's choice.

"This is probably the first time where I'm not completely against Luffy's choice of nakama," Usopp said.

"Yay!" Chopper said, dancing around Kenya. "We have a new nakama!" Kenya smiled.

"I'm really happy that you asked me, but..." She glanced at Ammy. The room fell silent and everyone turned to the wolf.

"Even though it doesn't seem like it at times, I am Kenya's mother figure," Amaterasu said. "So I suppose that Kenya feels the need to ask my permission before leaving this island." The wolf nodded to herself, as if confirming something. "Therefore, I say that Kenya will be allowed to sail with the Straw Hat pirates." The room was filled with cheers, and Kenya threw her arms around Ammy.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm gonna miss you when we leave. I miss you already."

"Why would you miss me?" the wolf asked, surprised. "That's only the first half of my present to you. And here's my second half: I'm coming with you." There was a moment of silence as everyone processed what the wolf had just said.

"Ammy, are you sure?" Nagi said, raising an eyebrow. The wolf nodded.

"Hey, don't wanna burst anyone's bubble, but then who's gonna look after the animals on the island?" Franky asked.

"Oh, that's solved easily," Nagi said, letting Kyonda crawl up to her shoulder. Kyuubou rubbed its head against her leg. "Kyuubou and Kyonda are a part of me, and I'm a part of them. We're connected." As if to prove her point, the eyes of the three glowed a blood red simultaneously. "When our eyes glow red, we see what the other two are seeing."

"That is a peculiar phenomenon," Brook said. "How did it happen?" Nagi shrugged.

"Ammy just found the three of us on this island, and we have no memories of what happened before she found us," she replied.

"Kenya-chan, what kind of cake do you like?" Sanji asked, assembling materials. "Strawberry? Chocolate? Or anything else?"

"Strawberry will be fine," she answered with a smile. "And since you guys already put so much effort into preparing this party for me, let's start partying already!"

"Yeah!"

The next day, Ammy made sure that everyone woke up early so that they could set sail. After a lot of goodbyes, Kenya and the silver wolf left the island with the Straw Hat crew. Kenya leaned on the railing, staring at the ocean long after the island faded from sight. She didn't respond when Robin came next to her.

"Have you eaten the Devil's Fruit yet?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, just this morning."

"Then I suggest you learn how to use your new found powers," Robin advised. "If we go into battle and you are still unsure of how to control your powers, then you are probably better off without having eaten the fruit."

"M, that's a good idea, Robin-neechan," Kenya smiled. "What should I do..." She blinked as the winds, of their own accord, shifted directions.

"The wind is blowing us off course," Nami muttered. Kenya grinned, getting an idea.

"Nami-neechan," she called. "Which way do you need the ship to go?" Nami pointed, and Kenya summoned a wind to blow them in that direction.  
However, still not having grasped her control over the powers, the wind was too strong and ended up blowing most of the crew members off the ship. With a large splash, Kenya, Nami, a sleeping Zoro, Luffy, Chopper, and Sanji, who was carrying snacks to Robin, were blown into the water. Brook had been in the training room, Ammy had been taking a nap indoors, Franky had managed to grab onto the ship's railing using his Strong Right, and Robin had also managed to save herself.

Zoro, who was now completely awake, reached the surface and spat out a mouthful of sea water. Disgusting.

"Oi, where are the others?" Sanji asked, surfacing while hanging on to Nami.

"I dunno," Zoro answered, but he was staring intently at the water, and he could make out four distinct figures, presumably Usopp and the others. Apparently Usopp was trying to help the hammers, but without avail. Really, unless you had superhuman strength like Luffy, how do you carry three people (Is Chopper considered human?) while trying to save yourself from drowning?

"That idiot," Zoro muttered, diving down into the water again. Sanji let Robin pull Nami back on the ship and quickly followed Zoro. Sanji reached the surface with Usopp slung over his shoulder and Luffy tucked under his arm, while the swordsman had to swim deeper down to reach Kenya and Chopper. He was nearly out of air when he noticed a glaive randomly floated in the water. He realized that it was tied to something, and experimentally tugged at it. It nearly slipped between his fingers as it was pulled out of the water, dragging Zoro and the two he rescued with it.

"Really, you people are helpless," Ammy told him as he reached the surface. Zoro blinked. The wolf was the size of a horse, and surrounding her were green and turquoise beads. He then realized that the glaive that he held in his hand was tied to the beads. In turn the beads were tied to the mast. Ammy had apparently gained strength along with size and pulled the three out of the water.

"Kenya should have told me before using her power," Ammy said, pulling the girl up by her shirt with her teeth. Franky helped Zoro and Chopper up. Luffy was already quickly gaining consciousness.

"That was surprising," he laughed, grabbing his straw hat that had been blown off. "I guess some Devil's Fruit abilities are harder to master than others."

"Wake up, Kenya," Ammy murmured, shaking the girls softly with her paw. Kenya slowly opened her eyes.

**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I coughed out sea water as I opened my eyes, shading them from the sun. Ammy and Chopper were leaning over me.

"You OK?" Ammy asked, stepping back as I sat up. I nodded, rubbing my throat. My mouth tasted salty, no doubt from the sea water.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked, my voice slightly hoarse. Chopper nodded in response, eying Ammy wearily. I blinked, then laughed when I realized why he was so cautious.

"It's OK," I said, patting the horse-sized wolf on the head. "She's still grumpy old Ammy. Just bigger. A lot bigger. Ammy has three forms, a lot like you, Chopper. I don't really get it, but she says that it's because the spirit of her wolf pack lives in her or something." I shrugged.

"Cool! (Sugeeee! Haha, just had to put that)," Luffy yelled, running up to the wolf. "You're huge! So what's your third form? Can I see? Please? Please, please, please?"

"Later," Ammy said with a sigh, shrinking back to her original size.

"Aw..." Luffy whined. "Boring, boring!" He walked away to go bother Sanji. Nami and Usopp slowly came out of hiding.

"So... it's safe right?" Usopp whispered to Nami.

"I think so," she answered. Ammy rolled her eyes. I laughed. It seemed that everyone had different reactions to discovering another one of Ammy's secrets. I yawned and stretched, feeling surprisingly tired.

"I'm gonna go take a rest," I said to no one in particular. Not wanting to go all the way to my room, I simply sat down and leaned against the mast, quickly falling asleep.

**~Regular POV~  
**  
Zoro blinked. Kenya was sleeping in the spot that he usually slept. Oh well. He went to sleep on the other side of the mast, only to be awoken by Nami's frantic shouts.

"There's a cyclone coming!" she yelled. "Franky, get some Cola ready! We'll have to use a Coup de Burst to get out of this one!"

"Gotcha!" The cyborg quickly prepared the barrels of Cola as the rest of the crew hurried to grab onto something secure.

"Whoa!" Kenya woke up, startled, as the ship suddenly flew into the air. "What the-!" Ammy leaped towards her and tackled her to the ground, preventing her from falling off the ship.

"The Burst is always amazing!" Luffy yelled estatically. "Yippee!"

"Eh... does anyone know for sure how long we're going to be flying?" Kenya asked, sweat dropping.

Silence.

"That's what I thought," she sighed, running a hand through her long, black, yellow streaked hair. "More training for me I guess. She wriggled out from under Ammy and leaned over the edge of the flying ship, just to see how high they were. Then she grinned.

"Captain, how about you say we fly all the way to the next island?" she asked.

"Yeah!" Luffy whooped. "Do it, Kenya!"

Suddenly, a great wind formed under the Thousand Sunny, and with great effort, the wind carried the ship higher into the sky, through the clouds. Kenya wobbled a bit as her strength suddenly decreased, but she smiled and kept the wind up anyways. The crew members nearby eyed her warily, but decided that she would stop on her own if it became too much.

No one expected her to actually carry them all the way to the nearest island. And when they saw the island come into sight, they expected the girl to collapse of exhaustion.

Kenya did not. She simply smiled, let the winds die down, and went back to sleep with her back against the mast.

You have to admit it. The child was amazing. Everyone in the crew, except for maybe Luffy, was shocked. Ammy merely shook her big, furry head and dragged a blanket over Kenya.

The Thousand Sunny landed in the water lightly, skimming the surface for a while until finally letting itself relax into the ocean. With a large splash, that is.

"What kind of island are we at?" Luffy asked excitedly, eyes glowing. He turned around to see Chopper and Ammy lying on the ground, looking exhausted with their tongues sticking out.

"From the looks of it, it's probably a desert island, like Alabasta," Sanji commented, lighting a cigarette. "Which means a lot of trouble for us... We have to carry Chopper, Ammy, and prevent Luffy from going insane from dehydration." Ammy managed to muster up enough energy to speak.  
"You also... have... to carry... Kenya," she said, panting between words. "She's... extremely... sensitive... to heat... Like... a vampire... almost..."

"How did she get along at her old island?" Franky asked.

"You... didn't see... while we were there... but... it's... a autumn... island..." The wolf flopped over and dragged herself inside, where it was considerably cooler. Chopper followed.

"Well, we have to go on the island sooner or later, if only just to get food and water," Sanji said finally.

"Then half of us can go on the island and the other half can stay here and guard the ship," Luffy said.

"Did... did Luffy just seriously say something smart?" Nami asked incredulously, sweatdropping.

"Yes... yes, I think he did," Zoro answered, equally amazed. Luffy was oblivious to the semi-insults that were directed at him.

"So me, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Franky, and Brook will go on the ship, and the rest of you are gonna stay here," he said. "OK, let's go!" He leaped off the ship and onto shore, not hearing Nami's warnings that he'd get lost. With sighs and estatic yells, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Franky, and Brook followed their captain to the nearest city, leaving Zoro, Chopper, Robin, Kenya, and Ammy on the ship. With nothing else to do, Zoro went to sleep and Robin began reading a new book.

"Aaaaah," Kenya moaned, waking up. "It's so damn hot... Why the hell am I out here in this heat? Dammit..." She dragged herself to the door leading inside the ship, only to yelp upon finding out that the door's handle was extremely hot. She groaned and leaned against the door, swaying and feeling faint.

"Stupid sun," she muttered. "I freaking hate the summer... deserts... Shitty summer islands..." She collapsed, slumped against the door.

"Kenya?" came Ammy's voice from inside. "Is that you? Get off the door! I can't open it!" When no reply came, the wolf growled and scratched at the door, eventually opening it. She dragged Kenya inside and promptly shut the door again.

Several hours later, around the time when Sanji usually served dinner, Nami and Brook returned to the ship. Alone.

"Where are the others?" Zoro asked lazily, going to meet them. Nami shrugged.

"Knowing them, they either got lost or got in a fight somehow," she answered. "So how are our desert haters doing?" Zoro jerked a thumb in the direction of the training room high above.

"They're up there. Apparently that room is air conditioned."

"Yohohoho!" Brook said, tipping his hat. "I shall go join them. Tell me when the cook is back and dinner is cooked."

As it turned out, dinner wasn't going to be cooked for a long time.

**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I hate heat. I hate the sun. I hate summer. I pretty much hate everything that is related to the day being over 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Whenever people ask the stupid question, "Do you like being hot or cold better?", I answer, "DUH. COLD." And then I give them a whack on the head for wasting five seconds of my life with a question that has an obvious answer.

At the moment, I was not feeling too good. The desert island we were on (Not technically "on", but you get what I mean) was making me feel like I had a fever of over 109 degrees. Which I probably was. But that might just have something to do with how I CAN'T STAND THE HEAT.  
Yeah, well. I'm running my mouth about something unrelated about our journey again. Anyways.

The training room was nice. The training room was VERY nice. It had an AC and was high up. Just how I like it. Brook-san and Zoro-nii came in later to use the room for what it was made for: training. Quite obviously. Robin-nee and Nami-nee were somewhere else on the ship. I couldn't be bothered to find out where.

While they were training, to make conversation, Brook-san told me about the awesome features of the Thousand Sunny (which he affectionately refers to as "Lion-chan") that they knew of so far. I gotta hand it to Franky-nii; he's very good at what he does.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

"What in the world are they doing?" Nami-nee burst into the training room, apparently very pissed about something. "It's been three hours since we should have had dinner, and they're still not here yet!"

"Reason one: they forgot to return to the ship. Reason two: they got into a fight and somehow got captured. Reason three: they got split up and lost. Reason four: the Captain is busy eating, Sanji-nii is flirting with girls, Franky-niisan is in a workshop or something similar, and Usopp-nii is probably lying to people," I answered boredly. Was it really that hard to guess? "Whichever one is true, we still have to go looking for them." Ammy and Chopper-kun exchanged nervous glances, sweat dropping slightly.

"You guys don't have to come if you can't take the heat," Zoro-nii said, jumping down from the room. Nami-nee and Brook-san followed him. Robin-nee joined them from wherever she had been before, and the group began to leave the ship.

"Wait, we're coming," I called, dragging Ammy and Chopper-kun with me as I followed them. The two braced themselves for the heat, then blinked in surprise as they probably found themselves as cool as they had been in the training room.

"I took the cool air in the training room and wrapped it around us," I explained. "So that way we can stay cool. I can probably only keep this up for half an hour though."

"We can find them in half an hour," Nami-nee said confidently. She suddenly seemed to remember something and added, "Probably. Let's split up and meet back at the ship in half an hour. Brook, Ammy, and Chopper will go this way, Robin and I will go the other way, and Zoro and Kenya will go straight." We split up and went our ways. I found out just how bad Zoro-nii's sense of direction was. I had to keep reminding him that we were going straight forward. I sweat dropped as I wondered how annoyed Ammy must have gotten when she had taken him to the main island.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**"Zoro-nii, you're going the wrong way again," Kenya said, sweat dropping slightly. She decided to run in front so that Zoro could follow her. Which was apparently a bad move because when she looked back, Zoro wasn't there.

"Dammit," she swore under her breath, turning abruptly and going the opposite direction in search of the lost swordsman.

The swordsman in question was currently wandering around wondering where he was. Scratching his head, he froze when he saw a very familiar face.

"YOU!" Tashigi exclaimed.

"Shit," he muttered. He immediately turned around and started running away, just as she began to give chase.

"Why won't you fight me!" she yelled as they ran.

"I've already told you!" Zoro yelled back. "You're exactly like my childhood friend!"

"Ah-hah! Finally found you Zoro-nii!" Kenya called. Zoro looked to his right and saw Kenya leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

"What are you doing up there?" he demanded. Kenya shrugged casually.

"Just felt like it," she answered. "But do you know how hard it was for me to find you? Sheesh, you'd think that you'd at least be able to FOLLOW someone!"

"Shut up, I'm busy now!"

"Busy being chased I see," Kenya noted. "So why are you being chased in the first place? Is she a Marine?"

"What of it?" Tashigi asked. Kenya shrugged.

"So I overheard you guys saying that Zoro-nii couldn't fight you? Something about a childhood friend?" Kenya had leaped down from the rooftops and was now keeping pace with Zoro. She turned around so that she was running backwards and grinned. "Want me to fight her?" Everyone screeched to a halt.

"Are you with the pirates?" Tashigi asked.

"You could say that," Kenya said nonchalantly.

"Even children," Tashigi said sadly, shaking her head. "Very well, I will fight you. But only to show you how dangerous the seas can be."

"Zoro-nii," Kenya said, her mood changing completely. "Let me borrow one of your katana. The white one." Zoro hesitated slightly, but obliged.

"Don't break it," he warned. Kenya gave a cold laugh.

"Of course not." She unsheathed the sword partially, staring at the blade. After a moment, she drew the sword from its scabbard and took a fighting stance which Tashigi mirrored.

There was a moment of stillness until they both dashed forward. The clang of metal clashing of metal rang through the air. Zoro waited expectantly for it to be over.

"I have a question," Kenya said softly. Their blades clashed and stayed in place.

"Why is it that you're so insistent on fighting Zoro-nii? It's not just because you're a Marine and he's a pirate... There's something more." Kenya stared at Tashigi straight in the eye. "I can tell."

"He has in his possession the Wado Ichimonji, the blade you are using right now," Tashigi answered, glaring back at her. "It is one of the 21 Ō Wazamono Grade Swords. It is crying because it is being mistreated."

"Oh, that's why," Kenya said simply. To Tashigi's amazement, she stepped back and sheathed her sword, holding it out to her.

"Can you hear it?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. She closed her eyes as if listening to a beautiful melody. "The sword's voice... It's faint because I haven't acquainted myself with it well, but I can tell that it most certainly isn't crying." Kenya unsheathed the sword once more and waved it about. Both Tashigi and Zoro, being skilled swordsmen, could hear the sword's voice. It was, as Kenya said, not crying, but rather singing, as if it were happy.

"Do you believe your own ears?" Kenya asked. Tashigi gritted her teeth. Kenya gave a small sigh.

"I suppose not."

Tashigi charged. Kenya, still with her eyes closed, blocked all of the Marine officer's attacks. Shocked, Tashigi realized that she must be listening to the sword's "voice" to anticipate all of her attacks. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she found herself blocking blows that Kenya gave rather than the other way around. She froze as she felt her back hit a wall. Kenya smirked and stabbed the sword into the wall, barely missing Tashigi's face. The blade shivered slightly.

"Swords choose their owners," she said simply, pulling the sword out. She walked away, tapping the sword on her shoulder. Tashigi gritted her teeth, remembering how Zoro had defeated her in a similar manner.

"Why did you spare me?" she growled. Kenya froze, turning slightly to glare at Tashigi from the corner of her eye.

"Pardon?"

"Why did you spare me!" Tashigi yelled. Faster than she could blink, she found the blade of Kenya's sword pressed against her throat. Kenya glared murderously at her. If looks could kill, Tashigi would be dead twelve times over. She gulped as a thin line of blood appeared where the blade pressed against her skin.

"Why did I spare you?" Kenya snarled. "You want to die that badly? Because it's shameful to be defeated by a girl? A child? There are plenty of ways to kill yourself, trust me. The sea's right there, go drown yourself. Or maybe you can go for the longest time a person has ever held their breath and suffocate yourself. Jumping off a cliff is possible too. Give yourself up to some pirates; I know that most of them would love to kill some Marines. You're a swordsman; why don't you cut off your head? Or did you want me to do that? Cause I'd happily lop off your head right now. But you're so obsessed with justice, you probably don't want a kid like me dirtying my hands, huh?"

"Kenya!" Zoro called sharply. He did not like how things were turning out.

Kenya's gaze flickered toward him for half a second; Tashigi felt a tremendous weight being lifted for that short moment. Kenya turned back to the Marine, eyes slightly less full of hate. She drew back, sheathing her sword.

"Next time you want to die, think for a goddamn second," she growled, tossing the sheathed sword to Zoro. "There are some people who don't like the thought of you buried under the ground. You sure as hell can't go around collecting swords from 'evil-doers' then."

"Kenya, we're leaving," Zoro said slightly louder than he needed to. Kenya nodded, turning to him as Tashigi sank to the ground, rubbing her hand on her throat where she was still bleeding. When she looked up, the swordsman and child had gone.

_"Next time you want to die, think for a goddamn second. There are some people who don't like the thought of you buried under the ground."_Similar to how regular people can't hear the voices of the sword, Tashigi hear the message that was intended for her.

_"Think for a moment, because some people would rather die than see you dead."  
_  
**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
**I'm really going to have to talk to the orange-haired navigator for grouping me with the idiots. The skeleton made lame jokes about his skeleton-ness, and the tanuki that insists that he's a reindeer acts like he's three when he's really 15. Not to mention that the skeleton is a pervert and manages to be a gentleman and rude at the same time while the tanuki is a moron. Enough said.

While I somehow managed to block out their idiocy, I wondered idly how Kenya was doing with the directionally-challenged swordsman. At least the navigator hadn't put him in my group or I would have imploded quite some time ago. I was also keeping track of the time in a corner of my mind. Fifteen of the thirty minutes that Kenya had given us had already passed, and there was no sign of the rest of the stupid crew. Knowing them, the simple-minded captain and the lying sniper were gorging themselves with meat while the perverted cook was being perverted. The speedo-wearing cyborg I really had no idea because I could care less about what people who wore only a shirt that was never buttoned and a speedo did. But I digress. I was making a list of ways to punish the four idiots for making us search for them in this hell hole when I caught the scent of smoke.

"Do you smell that?" I asked, mainly the tanuki because the scent was faint enough to escape humans' nostrils.

"Yeah, it's coming from over here," he answered, pointing. We followed the scent, turning a final corner to see... well, lets just say that my guess of where the block-headed captain was was wrong. Very, very wrong. And when you're 300 years old, you aren't wrong most of the time.

Ho hum.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**"Oi, Robin, do you really think it's going to be OK if we don't look for them?" Nami asked, glancing up from the dress she was holding.

"I am looking," Robin answered, turning a page of the book she was reading. To prove her point, an eye formed on the wall. Nami sweat dropped as it blinked at her and disappeared.

"If you say so," she said uncertainly.

"Nami-swaaaaan! Robin-chwaaaan!" Sanji popped out of nowhere, surrounded by floating hearts as he ran, waving, at the two.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami exclaimed. "Where have you been? We've been waiting for hours and you guys never showed up!"

"Ah, that's part of the reason why I was looking for you guys," Sanji said, growing slightly more serious. "Luffy and the others are in trouble."

"What happened this time?" Nami asked with a sigh. Robin gasped slightly.

"I found them," she murmured. "We have to get to them." Sanji nodded and the two ran off with Nami trailing after them.

"Hey, what happened!"

**~Zoro's POV~  
****  
**I have to admit it: the kid was starting to scare me a little.

Her eyes had completely lost their bored and disinterested sheen. Instead, they were very, very dark and hate-filled. Her hand was clenched in a fist and I could almost hear the grinding of her teeth. She was so angry I half expected her to blow up. So I was extremely cautious when I talked to her.

"What happened back there?" I asked. She took a sharp breath; apparently she was aware that I was wary of her. She immediately slipped back into her normal, fake cheerful self.

"Nothing," she said. "I just find it annoying that people talk about dying while they're still alive." She paused momentarily, sniffing the air in an interested manner. Aloud, she said, "Kyuubou, Kyonda, can you check something for me?" There was a pause, then, "Thank you."

"It's faint, but there's the scent of smoke with the Captain's smell mixed in," she explained, turning to me. "If we follow it, we might be able to find him." I nodded, trailing after her absent-mindedly. I was thinking; if that woman was here, and there was smoke... Could it be that smoke bastard from the Marines? It wasn't impossible. After all, we'd bumped into some random people in weird places. I was jolted out of my thoughts as Kenya suddenly froze. I glanced around to see what had happened.

Luffy was locked in a deadly battle with Smoker, with Franky and Usopp keeping away the hordes of lesser ranking Marines that surrounded them. Smoker's arm turned into smoke and launched his fist toward Luffy, who managed to evade it narrowly, retaliating with a Jet Pistol. Apparently he had gone through both Gear Second and Third, since he was child-sized and exhausted. That's what you get after battling an enemy that you couldn't touch for three hours straight. Kenya tilted her head interestedly.

"What's that smokey guy's ability?" she asked. I felt the air shift around us noticeably. I wondered what she was trying but instead decided to simply answer her question.

"He's eaten the Moku Moku fruit and can turn into smoke." Hence the name Smoker.

"Ah..." She blinked and narrowed her eyes. "I think I see the others."

**~Regular POV~****  
**"What the HELL?" Ammy snarled, making Nami leap a bit. "Can our captain not stay out of trouble for an hour!"

"That's what we wonder sometimes too," the cook answered, kicking a Marine who had strayed too close in the face.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_fuckfuckfuckfuc kfuckfuckfuckfu ck_**FUCK!**" Ammy muttered the cuss word at first, slowly growing louder and faster until finally roaring the word out with rage and frustration. She pounced from Marine head to Marine head, usually knocking them down, slowly growing in size while developing blood red markings in her fur until she reached the size of a healthy horse. To the amazement of everyone around her, on her back appeared a huge flame-like weapon, turquoise, orange, and red in color. The flames lashed out, burning the Marines nearby.

"Ha ha!" she yelled triumphantly. "How do you bastards like my Solar Flare?" Her question was answered by shrieks of pain and the scent of burning flesh. To the horror of the Marines, it turned out that fire wasn't the only thing that the enormous wolf was capable of; rather than being burnt to ashes, some found themselves frozen by her Tundra beads, which were dark blue and turquoise beads that surrounded a snowflake that was not unlike a collar on the wolf. A slight turquoise aura surrounded the beads. Ammy supposed that the frozen ones were lucky; they felt no pain and instead stayed in one piece unless someone accidentally and carelessly broke off a chunk of them. It didn't matter to her.

Those who were actually lucky enough to evade the destruction of her fearsome weapons were too busy thinking that they were lucky to remember that the wolf standing in front of them was the size of a horse and had very, very pointy teeth and claws. Ammy absently cleaned her claws of blood when she found that the other crew members had caught up with her, staying a healthy distance away from her weapons. Which was highly advisable.

"Looks like you guys got here the same time we did," Kenya commented, dodging a jab from a sword. She easily broke the blade with a foot, quickly knocking out the Marine. "So, Usopp-nii, Franky-nii, care to explain how you guys got into this mess?" Nami shrieked as a Marine suddenly dropped to the ground to be trampled by other Marines; the result of Kenya depriving him of air. Several found themselves unable to move, being pulled back by Robin's many arms. Usopp, who was wearing Sogeking's mask to boost his confidence, was sniping off Marines from a distance. Sanji and Zoro had apparently begun a contest to see who could knock out the most Marines while Franky was assisting Ammy in burning the Marines with his flamethrower. Nami was quickly calling up a thunderstorm with her ClimaTact, successfully electrocuting several enemies. Chopper simply bashed the heads of the Marines with his huge fists as Brook slashed at any that came near. They hadn't reached Luffy yet so they had no idea how he was doing.

"A little busy at the moment!" Usopp said louder than necessary, shooting a Flame Star at a Marine. "We'll explain once we get out of here!" He heard no reply so he glanced back, shocked when he found that Kenya was gone.

"Guys, where'd Kenya go!" he shouted frantically. Ammy glanced around worriedly, burning and freezing all in sight in her haste to find the girl.

_"Calm down, Ammy,"_a familiar voice said. But the voice was disembodied and seemed to come from everywhere yet nowhere, and echoed eerily. _"I just turned myself into air. This way I can get to Captain faster. I also have an idea with how to deal with the smokey guy's annoying ability."_Ammy was just about to open her mouth to ask what it was but decided that it was probably better just to run with it and said nothing.

_"Captain!"_Luffy heard Kenya's voice whisper-shouting in his ear so that only he could hear.

"Huh? Kenya?" He turned around in search of the owner of the voice, only to yelp and leap back to dodge a fist from Smoker, who had taken advantage of his distraction.

_"Shh, you're the only one who can hear me right now,"_she explained hastily. _"I turned into the air so no one can see me. Anyways, that's not the reason I'm here."_She squeaked as Luffy inhaled. _"Hey, watch it! You almost got me there!"  
__  
_"Sorry!" he murmured.

_"Ah, whatever. So I have an idea with how to deal with the smokey guy's ability, since it seems like you're having a hard time."_A hard time was right. He was absolutely exhausted from using both Gears and from fighting for such a long time. Kenya quickly explained her plan once, and Luffy nodded slightly to show that he understood.

Kenya took a deep breath, which felt kind of weird because she was simply made of air at the moment. It probably felt like wind to solid things. She shoved the thoughts out of her mind and concentrated on purifying the air around her.  
**  
**_"The book mentioned that the Kuki Kuki no Mi allows you to purify air. Since smoke is technically polluting the air, if I purify the air it will cause him to revert to his normal form. If I can keep him like that long enough, then you can attack him more easily. I tried it before and it takes a lot of energy, so try to end it in one blow. Once you get your one shot, he can probably use his power again. So remember...__  
__ "You have one shot."__  
_  
Kenya wasn't entirely sure how to purify the air. She had lied when she said that she had done it before, but it was pretty obvious that it wasn't an easy thing, so she hadn't been lying when she had said that it look a lot of energy. But she supposed that controlling her powers were most likely a natural thing, so she simply concentrated on an image of what the air would look like when she was done with it.

"What the-!" Smoker growled as he felt his smokey body turn solid. In the brief moment of his shock, Luffy launched a Gomu Gomu no Gatling. Smoker never had a chance to evade it.

Meanwhile, the other crew members had finally managed to knock out all of the Marines, which was amazing considering the fact that there must have been over 5000 of the bastards. Zoro and Sanji had defeated the same amount of Marines, miraculously enough, and were now bickering over who had won the contest. Ammy was watching the fight boredly, while the others were staring with absolute attention at the battle between Luffy, Smoker, and, though they couldn't see her, Kenya.

As it turned out, Smoker actually _did_have time to evade all the punches that Luffy gave out. Long story short, he got over his shock in time to pull out his jutte to block the "fists of fury" (one way to put it) of Luffy. The result of the battle? Kenya lost her energy and reverted back to normal and the Seastone equipped on Smoker's weapon caused Luffy to faint. But then the Marine had to deal with the rest of the pirate crew so both sides retreated with no victory rewarded to either side.

And so the Straw Hat crew went back to the ship and celebrated for no reason at all. Or rather, they celebrated the fact that they had escaped the Marine-infested island alive. Sanji cooked up a storm, Zoro and Nami had a drinking contest (which Nami ended up winning because of her slightly better alcohol tolerance. And the fact that she would be payed money if she won), and the rest gorged themselves on Sanji's food until they were fit to burst. Chopper, Kenya, and Ammy were also greatly relieved by the fact that the night was much cooler than it had been in the day. All in all, they crew was extremely glad that the Log Pose was ready to go in the short time that they had been on the island.

Kenya stared interestedly at the jug containing sake that Ammy had forbidden her to touch. When no one was looking, she stuck her finger on the liquid, admiring how it gave her finger a silvery-ish sheen. Without much thought, she licked the liquid off. Making a face, she quickly wiped her finger on her shirt before someone noticed.

Unfortunately, by the time that the drinking contest had ended, both contestants were thoroughly drunk. Zoro had left for his room to sleep off a headache, but Nami had stayed in the room, getting everyone else to take a drink.

"Heeere, Kenyaa-chaan~" she said, slurring her words as drunk people do, shoving the jug into Kenya's mouth. The orange-haired navigator grinned goofily. The rest of the crew was extremely and openly amused at the way Nami was acting, so they went along and let her force them to drink. Even Ammy did it. But if there was one thing the wolf was angry, or more accurately, _pissed off_about, it would be that Kenya had gulped down one mouthful of sake.

"Nyeeeeh..." Swirls formed in her eyes, and Kenya slumped on the table. "I see staws..." (I see stars) She giggled and hiccupped. "Pwetty... NYA!" Suddenly she bolted up, eyes wide and alert.

"**CHOCOWATE!**" (Chocolate) She grinned evilly at Chopper, who was suddenly very scared.

"Wemme eatchu~" (Let me eat you)

Thus ensued a chase that was not unlike when Sanji and Luffy had first met Chopper. It would have been quite funny (understatement of the year) if Kenya had not mistaken Luffy's precious straw hat for a mango, Nami for an orange, Sanji for a pineapple, Usopp for a coconut, Brook for a marshmallow, Franky for a mummyberry, Robin for a grape, and Ammy for a peach.

As you can imagine, chaos ensued.

Zoro had just woken up from his nap, feeling sober, when he heard the racket that was being made right outside his door. When he opened it, he found everyone frozen and staring at him in the positions that they were before he opened the door. As such, he was pretty darn freaking confused.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" No one answered because they were wondering what Kenya in her drunken state would imagine Zoro as.

"..." Kenya simply stared. And blinked. She blinked a lot. Then, finally:

"... Seaweed?"

Everyone fell. Anime-style of course.

* * *

_Ah... Drunk Kenya is always a treat. :D Yeah, this is definitely one of my favorite chapters._

_I have this story typed up to chapter 13, so me and Ryuu will probably be posting a chapter up everyday. Keep on the lookout for more chapters if you liked this! Also, check out Flip Side of the Coin, my Prince of Tennis fanfic, and Paths to a Dead Heart, Ryuu's counterpart to this fic that starts around chapter 5 of this fic. Don't forget to see Ryuu's other story, Kokoro no Yume, if you like 1/2 Prince, too!_

_Reviews/criticism/questions about the story? Feel free! :3_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	5. Chapter 5

Another insanely long chapter... *sigh* ~Ryuu

_In the middle of this chapter is about when Paths to a Dead Heart, Ryuu's counterpart to this story, begins. I advise that you read that if you want to know some backstory about what happens muuuch later in the story._

_And yeah, this is another long chapter. It's also a very random, crackish, but fun chapter._

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

* * *

**Chapter 5****  
****~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**OK, seriously. What the hell? The last thing I remember was the party on the Thousand Sunny. And now, for some reason, I'm asleep outside Zoro-nii's room and everyone is staring at me like I just tried to eat them. And my head is hurting like I just fell asleep on a pillow full of broken glass.

What the hell, man! What the HELL!

Yes, well. Ammy came and explained everything. Well, she explained everything after forbidding me from drinking alcohol ever again.  
Like I wanted to. I'm never going _near_ that hell water.

And even I didn't get my thoughts while I was drunk. Really? Ammy as a peach? I might as well said that she was a very nice, soft, cuddly, optimistic teddy bear. Ehe he he. I _really_don't want to see that. That would scare me.

I find that a lot of things scare me.

Like myself.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
** Kenya gulped down her fifth glass of water. The crew that were present sweat dropped.

"Don't you need to go to the bathroom after that?" Usopp asked.

"It's for the headache," Kenya said. "I'm trying to get a brain freeze."

"Normally people try to avoid freezing their brain."

"Yeah, well, normally people have a higher alcohol tolerance."

"True enough."

"This isn't working," Kenya grumbled, glaring at the ice cold water. "Argh, I'm going outside to get some fresh air."

Kenya rested her chin on her arms folded on the railing of the Sunny Go. Her long hair was whipped around in the wind. She closed her eyes, partly to prevent her hair from entering them, and partly just to enjoy the wind.

_Doomed to forever sail the seas, the ship braves the seas, rough and gentle, forever drifting and never to reach land. With nowhere to go, it simply lets the current take it around the world._

_ Drifting, drifting... Forever.  
__  
_**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I usually try not to let myself drift too far into my sea of memories. But it dulled the headache a bit, so I made it an exception.

And the reason why I try not to remember the past? Because it hurts. Simple as that.

"Kenny!" I glanced up and a smile lit my face as a boy older than me by two years ran towards me, waving. He was seven at the time, and his hair had been a light brown and never stayed in the same place. His eyes were an emerald green, so similar to my birthstone, sparkling and full of life. He was the only friend I had made on the island so far.

"Hey, Mase," I answered, standing up. We both had nicknames for each other, just another symbol of our friendship. "Your mom finally let you out?" He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah," he muttered. "She's so frustrating. I understand that inheriting the family shop is important, but she really works me too hard. I had to work for a long time before she let me take a break." He grinned at me. "It's worth it to see you though." I laughed. Mason was always fun to hang around.  
The reason why I only had one friend? To be honest, I seriously don't know. I think it was that Mason has always had a bit duller instincts than the rest of the human race, born from being raised around human goods. Most everybody else realized that I was different, but with Mase it didn't really matter. So I felt safe with him, no matter how unwise that was.

I told him about Ammy.

"You live with a wolf?" he asked incredulously. "Really? One that talks? That's freaky! What's it like?"

"Ammy is really nice," I said defensively. "She takes care of me like a real mom! And she makes me eat all my vegetables." I made a face, and Mason laughed. He forgot about the strangeness about wolves raising children.

So it wasn't really his fault that he accidentally let slip about the fact that I was living with a wolf. I didn't see him for three months after that.  
_Wolf child, Devil child, Wild child, unsanitary, dangerous, uncivilized, ferocious, man-eating.  
__  
_"Hey, Macy," I said weakly, giving him a forced smile, when he finally did come. He looked horrible, like he hadn't been eating, sleeping, drinking, or any of the things that living things need to do to stay alive. For three months.

That bad.

"I feel terrible," he groaned, plopping himself down next to me. "I... I told my mom about you. You know how parents gossip." Actually, I didn't, but I nodded anyways.

"I feel so bad about this," he said, putting his head in his hands. "Ken... I'm so sorry..." It hurt to see him like this. I put my hand on his shoulder.  
"It's OK," I murmured softly. "I can take this." He looked up, as if he really thought that I could. But he could tell.

"No, you can't," Mason said, his voice cracking. "I wouldn't be able to. I can't even handle my own pain. My pain is a drop of water compared to your ocean. It's impossible to be that strong. No one can carry the sea."

He was right. So I cried. He cried with me.

_Salty tears that form the ocean._

Ammy found out.

She beat Mason within an inch of his life.

I never saw him again.

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**"How's the headache?" Kenya flinched and glanced behind her.  
**  
** "Zoro-nii." She sighed and rubbed her temples with the palms of her hand. "Better."

"You looked like it got worse." Zoro had noticed how her face had contorted with pain as she revisited old memories that she had tried to bury in a place that no one could find.

"Ah... No. Just remembering some stuff."

"Mm."

"Captain never asked."

"About?"

"Our past."

"Luffy is the type of person that really doesn't care about that stuff. He can be slow at times, but in the end he makes the right choices."

"N?" Kenya ran her fingers through her hair, removing the knots. "I think the past matters a lot. But I see his point. Even if what happened before affects what happens today..." She turned and grinned at Zoro. "It's still how we make things out to be right now."

Zoro thought about Kuina and her death.

"Yeah." He looked down and met her always bored eyes.

"There's always something out there," Zoro said, patting her on the head as he left. Kenya blinked, a hand reaching to touch the place he had patted. Then she smirked.

"Finally. Someone saw through me."

**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
**I watched the swordsman and Kenya exchange a few words and tilted my head to the side. There were maybe two other people who had seen through Kenya's facade. One was me, and I had been with Kenya almost since her birth. The other was Oki, who had also seen through Kenya at first glance.  
Oki.

I remembered something and walked up to Kenya, tugging on her pants gently with my teeth. She glanced down at me and smiled.

"Hey Ammy."

"Kenya, remember the box that the cyborg gave you for your present?"

"The one with Oki-san's note in it? Yeah. What about it?"

"Have you opened it yet?" She shook her head.

"I tried, but it's extremely hard to open. I also tried breaking it open, but when I looked closely, the wood has diamond dust embedded in it. Franky-nii really knows how to keep people out." She paused thoughtfully. "Or it could be a magic box." I snorted. Yeah, right.

"I _will_figure out how to open it," Kenya promised. "Just give me some time." I sighed. I supposed that I couldn't expect too much of her. But it had become a habit. She was just that type of person: good at everything they got their hands on.

"Alright. I'll wait." She grinned.

"Thanks Ammy."

**~Regular POV~  
****  
**Kenya sat at the dining table, glaring at the box. Growling slightly, she pushed it away from her, disgusted.

"Namii-neee~" she said, putting her chin on the table.

"Yes?" Nami answered, turning a page in the newspaper.

"If you had one wish, what would you do with it?" Kenya looked expectantly at her.

"Wish for money." Kenya rolled her eyes.

"Of course. Now that I think about it," she said, sitting up, "Captain would wish to be Pirate King, or to have all the meat in the world, Zoro-nii would probably wish to be the greatest swordsman, Sanji-nii to find All Blue, or something to do with women, etc. etc." Nami sweat dropped.

"True."

"A-ah, so bored~" Kenya complained, rolling onto the ground with a loud thud. Nami sweat dropped again and glanced under the table.

"You OK?"

"Yaaa~" Kenya rubbed her eyes and sat up Indian style. "Where is everyone?"

"Who knows," Nami replied, returning to her newspaper.

"Nami!" Luffy came bounding in with a huge grin on his face. "People are shooting at us with cannons!" To prove his point, a huge wave caused by a cannonball rocked the ship back and forth.

"Eh!" Nami raced outside with Luffy running after her. Kenya walked out sleepily, kicking a cannonball away while turning a corner.

"And?" Kenya asked with a yawn. "What did you guys do this time?"

"Nothing, amazingly enough," Ammy growled.

"No," Nami said, sweat dropping. "I know that ridiculous flag... That's the flag that Luffy gave Foxy and his crew."

"Oh... Who?" Ammy and Kenya sweat dropped.

"Wonder what they want this time," Sanji grunted, kicking a cannon ball towards another oncoming cannon ball. The two collided and exploded.

"They probably want to get revenge for the flag," Usopp said. "After all, it really is horrible."

"Oi!" Luffy complained. "I heard that!"

"Straw Hat crew!" They turned their heads towards the Foxy ship where they could see Foxy standing at the front yelling into a megaphone.

"I have come to challenge you once again to a Davy Back fight!" he continued. "If you win, you may do whatever you wish to us. But if we win, we will exchange our flags!"

"What harm could it do? We already beat them once." With that, the Straw Hat crew agreed to the challenge.

"We will have the Roller Skate, Dodgeball, and Red and Green Light challenges," Foxy told them. "Choose your team members."

"Umm?" Kenya asked. "What are we doing?"

"It's a game," Robin said. "All you have to do is win."

"OK, sounds simple enough," Ammy yawned.

"... Ammy, do you know how to roller skate?"

"How to roller what now?"

"OK, we'll have Franky, Nami, and Chopper do the Roller Skate," Luffy decided. "And the other two we can have as many people as we want, so we'll just have everyone participate."

"Hold on," Nami hissed. "Does Chopper know how to roller skate?"

"I really don't know!" Chopper piped up.

"Get Sanji-nii, he's handy with his feet, right?" Kenya suggested.

"OK, Kenya-chan!" Sanji grinned, patting her on the head. "I'll do it if you ask me to."

"What, you're a pedophile now?" Zoro commented nonchalantly. Sanji just about exploded.

"Have you decided your members?" Foxy demanded through the megaphone, interrupting Sanji, who was in mid-insult. "The stages will now be set!" His ship transformed into a giant track.

"Friggin' Transformer's Ship!" Kenya yelped as Ammy picked her up with her teeth and leaped onto the track. The rest of the crew followed.

"Yoshaa!" Luffy yelled. "Beat 'em down, Sanji! Nami! Franky!"

"SUUUPAAA!" Franky bellowed his catch phrase. Nami simply sighed and Sanji lit a cigarette.

"The goal of the game is to skate as many laps around this track as you can before time runs out," Foxy explained through his megaphone as his crewmates stepped onto the field. "There are 5 rounds total. The game is automatically over if a team wins 3 rounds. You are not allowed to skate backwards, and if you touch the ground outside the field you will lose the round. Get into your positions!"

"Ne, Brook-san," Kenya murmured.

"Hmm? What is it, Kenya-chan?"

"Are we allowed to interfere with our opponents?"

"I have never played this game, so I am as clueless as you are. I do believe you are allowed to attack the opponents though."

"Hnn... OK," Kenya turned her gaze to the field, where the participants were lining up. Those who were watching were sitting on the bleachers, the Straw Hat crew included.

"Aaaand... BEGIN!" The teams took off immediately, the Straw Hat crew leading.

"WOOO! GOOO!" Luffy cheered. Ammy rolled her eyes and turned her big wolfy head towards the other team.

"What's the guy with the funky hairstyle doing?" she asked as Foxy prepared to fire Noro Noro Beams.

"He ate a fruit that lets him slow people down for 30 seconds," Chopper explained.

"So... Can I beat him up?" Kenya asked. The sensible members of the crew sweat dropped.

"Why would you wanna do that?" Zoro asked.

"I dunno. Seems like fun."

"... OK, you do that."

"YAY!" Kenya cried with glee. She disappeared and a gust of wind blew across the track. She reappeared next to Foxy, just as the Noro beam was leaving his hands.

"Hi there!" she said cheerfully with a friendly smile, delivering a swift kick to his face. Her kick caused him to slam into the wall, firmly stuck there. When he pried himself free, she was already gone.

"Ammy, this is fun!" Kenya said. Ammy smiled.

"Ten seconds left!" the announcer... well, announced.

"GO!" Luffy and Kenya yelled together, laughing. Their team was already way ahead, since Foxy's team had been relying on Foxy's Noro Noro Beams to slow them down.

"Five seconds!"

"Four! Three! Two! One! Time's up!" the announcer cried. "And the Straw Hat team is way in the lead for the first round!"

"I was thinking," Ammy commented, "Our team seems to be using way too much energy. They should go a little slower and save some energy for later."  
"Mm, they should," Robin agreed. "I'll inform them." Down on the field, Sanji, Nami, and Franky freaked out as the wall suddenly grew a mouth. It told them what Ammy had just said and disappeared. Sanji waved to show that they had gotten the message.

"The second round will begin shortly!" the announcer said. "All participants, please take your places!"

"Aaaand... Let the second round BEGIN!"

"Can I beat him up again?" Kenya asked.

Silence.

"What, are you asking me?" Zoro said, blinking and looking down at her. Kenya nodded.

"Well what are you asking me for?" he answered. "Go for it."

"YAY!"

**~Ammy's POV~  
****  
**I sweat dropped as Kenya disappeared to the other side of the stadium thing again. I glanced up at the swordsman, once again amazed. Not only had he seen through Kenya, but apparently she trusted him enough to ask his permission for something. Usually Kenya doesn't ask; she just does.

And Kenya is a VERY good judge of people.

I blinked as Kenya reappeared at my side, laughing to herself. I smiled. Kenya's happiness was contagious, especially when it wasn't faked. I wasn't the only one who thought this, apparently, because the other crew members began smiling or chuckling.

In the captain's case, he was already smiling so much his face was nearly split in two.

Kenya's eyes grew red. I waited expectantly, watching her face as it became emotionless, much as she is when she's in a battle. Once her eyes reverted to their deep blue color, I asked her, "How are they?"

"They're fine," Kenya said with a distant voice, as if she was still back on the island that was her home.

"But somethings happened?"

"Umm... Kairi's coming. Does that count?"

"EH! Kairi?" I paused, thinking. "Kairi can't come. He doesn't know where we are! He doesn't have the connection you, Kyuubou, and Kyonda have."  
"Well, we're not going anywhere right now and we're not too far from the island," Kenya answered. "Kyuubou and Kyonda told Kairi where we are. He's coming right now." I sighed.

"Ten seconds!" someone yelled. As if the giant yellow numbers on the scoreboard wasn't enough of an indicator. I had been too engrossed with the fact that Kenya trusted someone and that Kairi was coming and didn't know who was in the lead.

"Who's winning?" I asked.

"Five!"

"We are," the perverted skeleton said.

"Four! Three! Two! One! Time's up! The Straw Hat crew wins the second round!"

I turned to the rest of the crew.

"The other challenges better not be as easy as this shit cause if it is, then I'll pass."

**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I had to agree with Ammy on that one. The Roller Skating round was won with extreme ease. Though Nami-nee, Sanji-nii, and Franky-nii _were_somewhat tired.

"Ummm... The next one was dodgeball, right?" I asked.

"Indeed!" Foxy boomed. "In this version, however, you are allowed to use weapons! We will begin immediately!"

"Uwawawa..." I sweat dropped as I saw the number of people on the other team. "They must have at least a hundred people."

"The more people there are, the harder it is the move and the easier it is to get out," Ammy commented. "So it's technically in our favor."

"I suppose," I sighed. "So what are we gonna be throwing?"

"Bombs would be fun," Ammy replied with a toothy grin. "Or spike balls."

"That's a little extreme, isn't it?" Usopp sweat dropped. Then a thought hit me.

"... Ammy, how are you even going to throw or catch?"

She froze, then muttered profanities under her breath.

"In this game, you are allowed to throw anything on your side of the field," Foxy explained. "Including teammates, enemies, weapons, or the supplied materials." Suddenly, random objects came raining from the sky.

"What the hell?" Zoro-nii sweat dropped as he caught one. "What is this? A stuffed animal?"

"If you catch the thrown object, no one is out," Foxy continued. "If you are hit, you are out. This is an 'anything goes' Dodgeball game! Let us begin!"

"Hey, I have an idea," I grinned. "If Ammy can't throw or catch, can we throw _her_?" Ammy glared at us.

"Try it and you won't be waking up tomorrow," she growled.

"It was just a joke," I replied as I ducked under a rain of thrown objects, grabbing a few on the ground on the way. My team had already chipped away half of the opposing team.

I suppose Robin-nee's ability to grow extra arms had something to do with it. Usopp's accuracy was also helpful.

"This is fun!" I giggled. I turned into air, a knife passing through me, though my arms stayed solid. I caught the knife, tossed it back at them, and simultaneously blew away a book that came dangerously close to hitting Chopper.

"Fun~ Fun~ Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun~" I sang, continuing to dodge, turn into air, catch, and throw, particularly around Ammy since she couldn't catch or throw and the opponent had decided to aim for her. I hadn't had this much fun since Mason. Yeah, joining a pirate ship was definitely a good choice. There was no way we could have had this much fun back on the island.

"Now you see me-" One opponent threw a sword at me- "Now you don't." The sword passed through me and continued to fly to Zoro-nii. He instinctively caught it with his left hand, despite already holding one in that hand.

"Ever learned the four sword style?" I laughed, taking the extra sword from his hand. "Sanji-nii, would you do the honors?"

"Gladly," he answered. With that, I tossed it high into the air so that the blade pointed to the sky, and Sanji-nii delivered a swift kick that caused the sword to fly back to the opposing side, getting at least ten people out. Soon there were only three people left, and they were scrambling around, trying to dodge our throws while attempting (and failing) to get some of our members out.

"This can't be all," I grinned, "This was too easy."

**~Zoro's POV~  
****  
**I gotta hand it to whoever was left. They were really lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it. Foxy was one of them, which wasn't too surprising since he had his Noro Beams that slowed everything down. But they didn't stand a chance.

And damn, Kenya was good.

She had aim deadlier than Usopp's and was as strong as the wolf if it could've stood on its hind legs.

The best part? She was _enjoying_this. Like she was playing a game. A really, really fun game. When she threw a harmful object, she didn't care if the victim was hurt or not. Either way, with each player she got out her grin grew. And even though it was kinda sick, even though she was grinning at people's pain, you couldn't help but smile along with her. It was just the way she was.

"HAY LOOK OVER THERE IT'S A BIRD!" Kenya yelled suddenly, pointing at the sky. Foxy snorted.

"Like I'm gonna fall for- HOLY SHIT THERE REALLY IS!" he screamed as he followed her finger. Kenya grinned and put her fingers in her mouth, letting out a long, loud whistle. The bird gave an answering screech and began to dive down at an alarming speed.

"Kairi!" Ammy barked. "The glove!" Something fell from the bird's talons, which Ammy caught in her mouth and quickly gave to Kenya. She tugged the glove on and gave two short whistles. Kairi screeched again and turned around, heading straight for Foxy.

"That's against the rules!" Foxy yelled hysterically as the bird approached. "Team members can't cross over to the opposing team's side!"

"Kairi isn't on our team!" Kenya called back with a sadistic smirk. "He's a third party!" With that, Kairi clutched Foxy's shoulders in his talons so that the man couldn't move, and Kenya instantly began pegging him. The eagle proceeded to restrain the next two people, and our team made short work of them.

"That was fun," Kenya said simply as went to the bleachers for a break. "What's next?"

**~Kenya's POV~  
****  
**I have, never in my life, ever heard of, much less _played,_the games dodge ball and Red Light, Green Light. Dodge ball wasn't that hard to figure out, but what the HELL is the light game?  
**  
** Luckily, I wasn't alone. Our captain seemed to be quite ignorant about this stuff, not like I could talk.

The other crew members gave us a quick explanation of the game. It seemed easy enough. The problem was that nobody could decide who the person who called out Red Light or Green Light was gonna be. In the end, we let Luffy call out Green Light and Foxy call out Red Light. Which turned out to be a pretty bad idea.

"Green light!" Luffy said, walking forward.

"Red light!" Foxy said immediately, turning around to make sure that no one was moving.

"Green light!" Luffy yelled again, glaring at Foxy.

"Red light!"

"Green light!"

"RED!"

"GREEN!"

"RED!"

"GREEN!"

"RED!"

"GREEN!"

"RED!"

"GREEN!"

"QUIT IT!" I yelled. Most everyone sweat dropped.

"... Red light?"

I immediately froze, but many people hadn't been expecting for Foxy to say red light after I had just screamed at him, which meant that over half the people were out.

"Green light!" Luffy called. I covered the ground with leaps and bounds, and occasionally Kairi carried me in his talons. The goal was to catch up to your captain, and the captains were standing on the other side of the field. Because of the green-red-green thing going on earlier, we hadn't gotten very far. There was a time limit, and whichever team had a person closer to the captain was declared the winner. So far, we were winning. Because of me, if I do say so myself.

"Red light!" Foxy said. I stopped in my tracks, as still as a statue. Several more people on the opposing team were caught moving. Luffy didn't say green for a long time. My left foot (the one I was standing on) got numb and my right foot (the one in the air) _almost _moved, but I managed. But more opponents couldn't take it and fell or something like that and were out. Luffy FINALLY said green light, thank god.

"Hey, hey, you know what would be really fun?" I said as the rest of my team caught up with me.

"What?"

"Somebody throw me!" I grinned. We all turned expectantly to Zoro-nii.

"What! Me!" he grumbled. "Fine..." Without slowing down, he picked me up and put me on his shoulder.

"Whenever you're ready!" I laughed. He grunted and screeched to a halt, throwing me with all his might.

Wheeeeeeeee~ What fun.

"Red light!"

Shit. I was in mid-flight. Nothing a little disappearing can't solve though.

I'm pretty sure the rules said specifically that the person had to _see_ you moving in order to get you out. And seeing as how you can't really see air (no pun intended)... Automatic win much?

"Green light!" Luffy called. With that, I returned to my solid form and tapped the captains on the shoulders.

"I win," I grinned.

"And the Straw Hats are the victors once again!" the announcer shouted.

"Which side is _he _on?" Ammy asked, walking up to me.

"I dunno, I wonder," I answered. "He doesn't seem to depressed about Foxy's team losing, but he's obviously not on our side." I shrugged. "Maybe he's just neutral." Ammy snorted.

"Now that we've had a little fun and finished off these annoying guys..." She turned around and watched Kairi fly in circles high above us. "We have this little rascal to deal with."

* * *

Yay~ RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT! x3 ~Ryuu

_KAIRI'S BACK! Who missed him, huh? =P_

_Don't forget to read Path's to a Dead Heart, and our other stories if you have time~  
_

_Reviews/criticism/questions?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	6. Chapter 6

_Hey y'all! Kai here! This is the second chapter that I uploaded all by myself, and I'm still proud! This was a pretty long chapter._

_It has some humor. And warning: MORE DRUNK KENYA._

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

* * *

**~Regular POV~**

Kairi dove down, spreading his wings to slow down his descent, and landed neatly on Kenya's shoulder.

"Kairi, you could give us a _little _bit more warning before you decide to fly across half the ocean to come visit us," Ammy grumbled. "What's the idea of you coming anyways?" Kairi screeched indignantly, as if defending himself.

"Uh huh. You missed Kenya and me, so you took off yesterday and thought that Kyuubou and Kyonda had already told Kenya you had gone?" The bird nodded. Ammy sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Hey Kenya, is the bird gonna stay with us forever?" Luffy asked excitedly. In the background, Foxy and his crew were looking extremely pissed off and miserable at the fact that the Straw Hat crew had beaten them once again and were now ignoring them.

"I dunno," Kenya shrugged. "Kairi says he'll just stay as long as he feels like it and go back when he's sick and tired of looking at you all. He'll come visit sometimes I guess. To check up on us. He says that everyone back at the island misses us."

"Do you miss them too?" Nami asked quietly. Kenya smiled.

"Of course," she answered, stroking Kairi. "But don't we all miss somebody? I'm still glad I joined your crew though. I haven't had this much fun since forever."

"Yeah, that's all sweet and all, but I think we should get off Foxy's ship before they kick us off," Usopp interrupted, jerking his thumb at the crowd that was looking more and more murderous by the second.

"I guess they really are sore losers," Kenya muttered. "OK, time to run!"

"Woohoo!" Luffy yelled gleefully as they made the long jump from ship to ship. Usopp and Nami, being less courageous, ended up being pushed off... And, well, they had to be saved from drowning. Kenya got a good laugh out of that one.

"Nami-nee, where's the next island?" she asked.

"It's northeast from here," Nami answered, glaring daggers at the guys struggling to contain their giggles. "Can you get this ship of morons there while I go get a change of clothes?"

"Sure," Kenya replied, carefully attaching the Log Pose to her wrist. "Hm... OK." She went up to the wheel and stared at the seemingly endless, sparkling blue sea ahead.

"Here we go! To the next island!"

**~Ammy's POV~**

Is it physically possible for a bird to smirk? You'd think that having beaks and bills they wouldn't be able to but... Kairi managed.

"So has my little sister hooked up with a crew member yet?" he asked casually, preening his feathers.

"God, you are _so _annoying and perverted," I grumbled. "It's a good thing Kyuubou and Kyonda choose what they decide to translate for Kenya or I would've broken your neck by now."

"I'm taking that as a yes."

"No."

"Are you sure?" Oh god, I could just _feel _the bastard's smirk growing. "I saw that swordsman earlier today. They looked preeetty close."

"Do you enjoy annoying me?"

"Yup."

"..." I snarled and swiped at him, annoyed when he flapped his wings, flying just out of reach. I leaped and tried again, but he dodged it easily, whistling a tune.

"Get down here you wussy bird," I growled angrily.

"Make me," he taunted, landing on the top of a shelf.

"I can't believe that Kenya thinks you're the nice and silent type!" I yelled, exasperated. I turned around, giving up. A stupid mass of feathers wasn't worth using my powers on.

"Oo, is the infamous Ammy running away?" Kairi sing songed teasingly. I froze, my ears twitching.

"Shut. Up." I snarled without bothering to turn around. I nudged the door open and exited.

Fucking birds.

**~Kenya's POV~**

I got a feeling. ... That tonight's gonna be a good night!

Nah, just messing with ya.

But seriously, I really didn't know why but Ammy and Kairi didn't seem to get along. At all. Which wasn't too weird cause Ammy didn't get along too well with anybody, but meh... Ammy really, really, really, _really_, didn't like Kairi. And that _was _weird since Kairi was really nice and quiet, which was just the type that doesn't annoy Ammy. But I digress.

Ammy stormed out of the dining room muttering some very colorful words about birds, specifically one bird.

"I don't get why you hate Kairi so much," I said, matching her pace as she marched around the ship with no particular destination.

"Oh, you won't if Kyuubou and Kyonda know what's good for them," Ammy grunted.

"Eh?"

"Oh, nothing," Ammy answered cheerfully.

"Kenya-chan! Ammy-san!" Sanji called from the kitchen. "Dinner's ready!"

"Coming!" I yelled back.

"Fish," Ammy muttered as we walked towards the dining room. "Wonderful. I hate the smell of fish..."

"Well I love fish," Kairi screeched from above, descending onto my shoulder. Ammy shot him a glare and went on ahead.

"Hey Kairi, why does Ammy hate you?" I asked curiously. I wasn't trying to be nosy. People could hate whoever they wanted. But I had known Ammy and Kairi my entire life, and they had known each other before I was born, and I had never figured out why they despised each other.

"It's cause-" Kairi answered, but everything I heard after that was completely nonsensical.

"Kyuubou, Kyonda, what the heck?" I muttered. "Why do you guys always mistranslate crap in my head whenever Kairi's about to explain something to me?"

_You heard Ammy, _Kyuubou voice echoed in my head, _She'll be after our blood if we actually translated his words properly._

_Indeed, _Kyonda purred. _So please don't pry and we might be able to live when we see her again._

"Fine," I grumbled. I opened the door to the dining room and found everyone already pigging out on the food.

"Sanji-nii, what's for dinner?" I asked, taking a seat.

"Fish," he replied. I grinned.

**~Regular POV~**

'Twas a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the bright blue sky was clear of clouds. The ocean sparkled, a true sight to behold.

On the decks of the Straw Hat Pirates, it was a different story completely.

"DAMN YOU SUN!" Usopp yelled defiantly, shaking a fist at the giant ball of flame in the sky. He obviously seemed extremely tired. Maybe it was because that his eyes had huge, dark bags under them. Or maybe it was because he was flopped on the deck of the ship, too lazy to move out of the shade of the mast. Beside him was Chopper, in a similar position.

Perhaps we need to rewind a bit?

It was several days after Foxy's defeat and Kairi's arrival, and the Thousand Sunny was stuck. The winds had died out almost immediately the next day, and Franky had told them gravely that they had run out of cola. The provisions and water had to be rationed out, Ammy being provided the task of guarding said food and water from the crew members, and since they were currently in summer latitudes... The Straw Hats were currently experiencing the long, dog days of summer.

"Hey Kenya... Can't you use your wind to push us?" Luffy asked boredly, feeling lazy as he rolled round.

"It's too hot..." she grumbled. "Not enough energy... I wouldn't be able to get us far anyways... You remember what happened last time I tried to help?"

"Good point..." Luffy looked thoughtful for a moment. "But you can control your power better now, and can't you go to the training room to cool down?"

"Can't go into cold rooms right now," Kenya muttered. "I get a stomachache." Grumbling to herself, she dragged herself over to the shade next to the rest of the crew members.

"Why?" Luffy asked innocently.

"Oh, I get it," Nami said. "It must be _that_." Robin nodded knowingly. Luffy looked at the others, confused, but they looked as lost as he did.

"It's a girl thing," Kenya muttered. "And it sucks in the summer cause eating chocolate just makes it hotter."

"I totally know what you mean," Nami agreed.

"Oooh, you mean _that_," Kairi said knowingly, nodding to himself. "Hoho." Kenya raised an eyebrow.

"Kairi, how would _you_ know about this stuff?" she asked. "Unless you're a girl."

"Of course I'd know about this," Kairi said wisely. "After all, I-"

"Kyuubou, Kyonda, again?" Kenya asked exasperatedly.

_Sorry, but it ended up not being something we could translate and live to tell Ammy about, _Kyonda said apologetically.

Meanwhile, the crew members other than Kairi and Ammy were looking at each other and wondering why Kenya was talking to herself. And why her eyes were red. Kairi was chuckling and Ammy was glaring very pointy daggers at the bird.

"Let's go inside," Ammy finally growled. "Even if it's not air conditioned, it'll still be cooler." The others agreed and went on in, and Ammy dragged Kenya, seeing as how the girl was extremely lifeless.

"Look at what the cat dragged in," Kairi chuckled as Ammy entered.

"I'm not a cat," Ammy snapped. Kenya got up and slowly made her way to the table.

"Chopper-kun, do you have some medicine for stomach cramps?" she asked

"Oh, yeah," Chopper said, hopping off his stool to get his medicine bag. Bored and tired, Nami went to go get herself a cup of booze.

"Drinking in the day?" Robin questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"There's nothing else to do," Nami answered. She placed the mug on the table to go get the newspaper as Chopper entered with the medicine. Usopp and Luffy, already rejuvenated, began play fighting. Chopper placed the medicine bottle on the table and told Kenya to drink it while he looked for better medicines. Usopp bumped into the table, just as Kenya reached out for the bottle. She ended up grabbing Nami's beer mug and chugged it down before looking at what she had grabbed.

"Wait, Kenya, that's- SHIT! EVERYONE DUCK FOR COVER!" Ammy yelled.

"Ehehehe~" Kenya giggled, tottering from side to side. She was even more drunk than before, seeing as how she had drank the whole cup this time. "HUGZ!" She bounced out of the chair and flung herself at the nearest person, which happened to be Usopp.

"GAH! Get off!" Usopp yelled, trying to get the girl off of him. Kenya yelped as she felt herself being lifted up by the back of her shirt. With some relief, Usopp thanked his savior, who happened to be Zoro.

"You know, I'd really hate to do this but I'm gonna have to if you don't calm down," Zoro said. Kenya simply grinned at him and began glomping him. Sighing, Zoro grabbed a bucket of water and dumped it on Kenya, who immediately began to feel the effects of the sea water.

"Nyaa..." She slumped lifelessly on the ground. Ammy picked her up and put her in her room.

"OK, so we don't have to deal with drunk Kenya," Ammy said when she returned. "But that water was cold. I can't guarantee the fact that she'll be in perfect health when she wakes up."

"I'll go change her clothes," Nami offered, and she left.

Several peaceful minutes later, the crew members heard Nami's shriek. They immediately jumped up and raced to Kenya's room and found Nami being glomped by Kenya.

"Zoro! I thought you took care of her!" Nami yelled accusingly, pointing a finger at the girl latched onto her.

"I thought I did too," the swordsman answered. Usopp and Chopper walked off to go get another bucket of sea water.

"Well now we know that even sea water can't hold drunk Kenya down," Ammy muttered. "There's gotta be a better solution for this."

"Just get her off me for now, she's starting to get heavy," Nami complained. Ammy looked expectantly at Zoro with a look that said, _What, you expect _me _to go pick her up?_

"You can be a huge pain sometimes," Zoro grumbled, picking the girl up again. Kenya's only answer was a silly grin and attaching herself to the swordsman.

"Great, now I can't get her off me," he muttered. "So now what?"

"Since we don't really have a solution for this, I guess you'll just have to stay like that till the alcohol wears off," Ammy said, walking away with a yawn. "Have fun, but don't you _dare_ lay a finger on her." Zoro sweat dropped.

"Kinda hard like this."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, walking off in search of a way to get the girl off of him.

**~Zoro's POV~**

Jeez, when that kid's drunk her grip is like the strongest thing in the world. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get her off me so I finally gave up and went to sleep with her still attached. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, lemme tell you.

And then I freaked out cause I woke up feeling something wet on the bed and found _blood _there. The wolf and the girls stormed in, ripped the sleeping girl off of me and locked me out of my own room. Which was lame since when I complained they told me to go to the stupid cook's room for the night.

I would've preferred sleeping in a bloody bed with a drunk kid attached to me.

**~Ammy's POV~**

Crap crap crap crap crap crap. No wait, crap isn't a strong enough swear word.

_**Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit.**_

__OK so I totally forgot that Kenya still her period. Can't blame me, a mother can't always remember these things. But the fact that she got _drunk _and let her _sleep with a guy _was ridiculous. I had no idea what I was thinking.

And keep in mind, she's still having her period.

So me and the other two females had a hellish time trying get Kenya to change her now bloodied clothes. She woke up immediately and instantly began struggling. The archeologist had to use her flower power (weird way of calling it, I know) to restrain her. And we _still _had a shitty time.

So yeah, the entire night went by with the three of us trying to get Kenya to change and trying to get her back to sleep. Obviously we kicked out the swordsman. No way in fucking _hell_ is he, or any other male, going anywhere _near _Kenya when she's changing. So I sent him to the room furthest from here, which happened to be the perverted cook's. He wasn't too pleased about that for some reason.

But anyways, getting Kenya changed was hard enough but getting her to go back to sleep was just downright painfully frustrating. It's like... like... Trying to get a Devil Fruit user to swim across the entire ocean, or trying to get someone to get rid of their OCD.

It's fucking impossible.

Eventually we just gave up, changed the bed sheets, and let the swordsman back into his room but telling him to call us as soon as Kenya started "bleeding" again. Kenya let go of me, since she had been hanging onto me the entire time, and latched herself onto the swordsman and miraculously fell asleep instantly. I raised an eyebrow. If I recalled properly, Kenya had always had insomnia...

Oh well. Wasn't important.

We left and I went up to the kitchen where all the food was stored. Damn people, using me like a guard dog. Twice the captain tried to sneak in and steal some (or all) of the food but I snapped at him and threatened to throw him into the sea. He finally stopped coming and I was able to take a quick nap before the others tried to snatch some food.

**~Kenya's POV~**

Dammit what the hell.

So I wake up hugging Zoro-nii, sleeping in the same bed as him, have the worst fucking god damned headache in the world, and feeling extremely pissed off cause of my period. Is it that bad of me to demand some answers?

OK so maybe I shouldn't have thrown Zoro-nii, who was still sleeping, over my shoulder, raced out of the room, and hunted Chopper down, yelling about what he put in my medicine and... yeah.

Ammy, Nami-nee, and Robin-nee came running, being females and sympathizing with me. Zoro-nii also burst into the room and said something along the lines of, "What the hell was that for!", but my headache drowned it out so I can't be too sure.

"Ow... headache... Please talk softer," I whimpered, wincing at the volume as a spasm of pain went through my head.

"Indeed, that's not a way to speak to a little lady." I would've grinned at Sanji-nii, who had just entered the room, for the comment but the headache had my full attention at the moment.

"Agh, dammit, it's still like the summer out there too..." I groaned and fell into a chair. "When the hell are we gonna finally reach the next island? This is fucking torture..."

"Well the winds have started to pick up a bit yesterday night, so we might be able to get to the next island in a day or two," Nami-nee explained. Very, very softly.

"OK," I answered, slowly getting up. "I'm going to go sleep... I'll wake up when my headache is better..." I wandered off to my room and collapsed on the bed, quickly falling asleep.

**~Zoro's POV~**

What the hell did I do to deserve all of this! The wolf finally let me back into my own room, so I could finally get the stupid cook's face out of my line of vision, but then the kid attaches herself to me again and I can't sleep cause it's so damn uncomfortable. When I finally _do _go to sleep, the kid fucking _throws me over her shoulder_ and runs off, yelling for Chopper.

Not exactly the best way to wake up in the morning after a sleep-deprived night.

So I did what any normal person would've done and ran after her and demanded some answers, and _then _she makes it seem like _I'm _the bad one and tells me not to yell cause of her headache.  
Oh, and not to mention that at that exact moment, the idiotic cook just _happens _to walk in and lectures me about treating a "little lady".

What. The. Fucking. Hell.

**~Regular POV~**

As predicted by Nami, they reached the next island in a day and a half. Kenya slept off her hangover, Zoro caught up on some lost sleep, and the crew relaxed for the most part.

"I wonder what's gonna happen on this island," Kenya mused as they reached a dock. They left the ship and went their separate ways, exploring the city. They returned to the ship at nightfall, though admittedly they had to go through the city again to find Zoro who had somehow managed to find his way to the other side of the island.

"So did you guys find anything worthwhile?" Nami asked as Sanji served dinner. "I heard that we need to stay a week for the Log Pose to memorize the magnetic field, which I suppose is good since we need to restock on food and some rest."

"Yeah, this place has a bunch of good ship supplies and cola too," Franky added. "They have pretty much everything here. Isn't this such a SUPA! Place?"

"Yes, yes," Brook agreed. "Though I noticed an unusual amount of pirate ships. Is this place not afraid of pirates?"

"I think this is the cause," Robin said, holding out a flying. They crowded around it.

"Whoa, a Pirate Battle Royale?" Sanji exclaimed. "No wonder!"

"Sounds like fun! When is it? When is it?" Luffy asked.

"It's the day after tomorrow," Usopp said. "And the prize is 10 million Beli!"

"We're entering," Nami said immediately.

"WAHOO!" Luffy cheered. "This is gonna be awesome!"

"The requirements..." Robin's eyes scanned the page. "Must have under 100 members... All members must participate... You must pass the preliminary round before you can battle other pirate crews... Finals are 1 on 1... The crew that has more winning battles in the finals wins... You only receive money if you win the finals."

"Wait, we _all _have to participate?" Usopp asked. Robin nodded and pointed out one of the rules. Chopper whimpered.

"Nothing's getting in the way of my 10 million Beli," Nami growled. "Where do we sign up?" Robin handed her the advertisement and Nami marched off to register the Straw Hat Pirates.

"Thirty Beli that something's gonna mess up the royale," Kenya said lazily once Nami left. No one could bet as long as Nami was around. But once she left, the more bored and silly members would bet on the randomest things.

"Twenty Beli agreeing with Kenya," Usopp answered, slapping the money on the table.

"Twenty five that it's gonna go fine!" Luffy said. Ammy raised an eyebrow.

"Luffy knows how to bet?" she asked to no one in particular.

"Thirty Beli that Nami's gonna be pissed once she finds out that we're using her money on bets," Zoro drawled.

"Fifty Beli that I will beat you up if you badmouth Nami-san ever again in your life," Sanji growled, rolling up his sleeves. Zoro rolled his eyes. Just then, Nami entered the room again, looking incredibly proud of herself.

"I signed us up just in time," she announced. "There were only two spots left. Man, and there were over 100 ships signed up too!"

"Looks like there were a lot of people that came for this," Robin said.

"Then it should be all the more interesting," Zoro grinned.

"Yay! Bloodshed!" Kenya cheered. Everyone sweat dropped at her.

"What?"

"... Nothing... Just... Nothing..."

**~Sanji's POV~**

I love all of the female kind. It's no big secret. I'm aware that this is a huge flaw of mine. I'm no idiot, like a certain marimo-head thinks I am.

Anyways, Kenya-chan is no exception to my affections. But she's always been a bit strange. It's like... She's happy all the time, but the happiness isn't real. It's forced, all make-believe and pretend. And the things the does, the ways she acts... I know that she never had a real human family, so that she was raised around animals. So she can't be "normal" by civilized people's standards.

But lets break it down. She's a crazy fighter; in battle, she's cold-blooded and isn't afraid to kill. She probably has, dozens of times. Which is a good attitude for a warrior. But that earlier comment is enough to creep out pretty much anyone. She was cheering... About bloodshed.

And then there were her weird quirks too. Kenya-chan can't handle the heat; she's even worse in it than Ammy or Chopper. And the tiniest amount of alcohol will cause her to go into a drunken frenzy, either hallucinating that everyone is some kind of food or attaching herself to everyone near in a death hug.

Needless to say, she's a weird kid.

But that's OK; I can handle weird people. But the person, and person as in _human_, she seems closest to is Zoro.

And that just pisses me off.

He can (semi) calm her down when she's drunk. He knows about her fake happy mask. She fell asleep when she was with him when no one else could get her to.

It's not jealousy. I'm no pedophile,though I love all girls and women. It's just...

What the hell did Zoro do to deserve Kenya-chan?

**~Ammy's POV~**

I think we need to fix that blood-loving habit of Kenya's.

Putting that aside though...

"OK, so if the tournament is the day after tomorrow, what are we gonna do tomorrow?" I asked. The others looked at me and shrugged, causing me to sweat drop.

"Just do whatever you feel like," Usopp said lazily, leaning back in his seat.

"Isn't that just what we always do?" Franky added like it was obvious.

"Whatever you say," I muttered. "I'm going to sleep. You guys have fun." I walked out, twitching my ear in annoyance when I heard wings flapping after me.

"Kairi, don't follow me," I snarled, not bothering to speak human. He tilted his head to the side, looking at me in a curious manner.

"Aren't you gonna be lonely?" he asked. I snorted.

"I've lived for three hundred years," I said, turning to face him. "I've been lonely for most of my life. What the hell makes you think that I can't handle going to sleep by myself?" Kairi ruffled his wings in a bird-like shrug.

"Suit yourself," he mumbled, flying back in. I smiled bitterly to myself.

"Suit myself indeed," I muttered to myself, walking off.

* * *

_Yeah... Started out pretty funny. And if you don't know what happened to Kenya, you'll learn... And it ended with dark Ammy. That tends to happen sometimes._

_Reviews/criticism/questions?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	7. Chapter 7

_Warning: This chapter contains lots bloodshed and bloodlust and basically, lots and lots of blood._

_Mainly because of Kenya, but whatever. :3_

_Yup, this chapter was fun. It's very dark though, and it has killing and all that good stuff. Not for the weak hearted, although I admit that my description is very lacking. Perhaps that's a good thing, or maybe not._

_Anyways, enjoy!_

_-Kai_

* * *

**~Kenya's POV~**

"Battle Royale, Battle Royale~" I sang, skipping around the ship. "Fight, fight fight~"

"_What_ are you singing?" Zoro-nii grumbled as he woke up from his slumber. About time too. He had been dozing off on the ship for... oh, two and a half hours?

"Hi!" I said cheerfully. "The Pirate Battle Royale is tomorrow!"

"Yeah, I figured," he grunted, turning over on his side. I pouted.

"Sleeping already?" I hopped over and crouched down, tilting my head so that I was facing him. "You should get up and do some exercise you know. You could get fat with all the sleep and beer."

"Shut up kid, I already trained earlier today," he mumbled, rolling over to his other side so that his back was facing me. I grinned. This was fun. I hopped over to the other side.

"Really? I didn't see you," I replied, poking his arm. I kept on poking him until he growled, his eye twitching, and finally sat up.

"I trained in the morning when _you _were sleeping," he grumbled, scratching his head. "You are so annoying sometimes." I grinned and stuck out my tongue childishly.

"So are we gonna go train?" I asked, standing up.

"No, I am going to wait until you leave me alone and then go back to sleep," he mumbled, leaning back with a yawn. "Why don't you go run off and play with the perverted cook or something. He seems to like you."

"He likes anything female that walks by," I pointed out impatiently. "C'mon, get up already."

"Nope. Why don't you go run off with Luffy or something?"

"But I already played with him!" I whined. "Come on! Would it hurt to get up and do at least ten minutes of training or whatever?"

"Yes, my muscles are sore. From early morning training. Now buzz off, I'm trying to catch up on some sleep," he grunted, laying back down.

"Oh COME ON!" I growled. "You've already caught up on two and a half hours of sleep! Now get your lazy ass off the bed!"

"No."

"... Do you enjoy making me mad?"

"Maybe."

I growled and kicked him, then turned and walked off. Behind me he scratched his head again and muttered, "Finally."

Damn lazy swordsman.

**~Regular POV~**

The day before the tournament passed by restlessly for the Straw Hat crew. Luffy and Usopp spent their time play fighting, while Zoro either trained or slept. Sanji cooked up a storm and constantly attempted to keep Nami, Robin, and Kenya happy. The two older women were usually found reading or something like that. Kenya just bounced around, annoying her crew mates. Chopper hid in his room, supposedly preparing his courage and strength for the next day. Franky was fixing parts of the ship that had been damaged from their voyage, and Brook simply played his violin, letting his sweet music drift throughout the ship. Ammy switched between following Kenya and dozing off whenever she felt sleepy. Kairi followed the wolf, seeming to enjoy annoying her.

"God dammit," Kenya muttered, banging her head against the mast.

"What is it this time?" Zoro asked in monotone. He wanted her to leave. Soon. Her banging was making the mast vibrate. It isn't easy to sleep against a vibrating mast.

"How many hours until the tournament?" she asked, still bashing her head.

"Stop it," he snapped. "We still have 10 hours till midnight, calm down."

"But it's so _boring_," the girl complained, sitting down next to the swordsman. "How can you stand it?"

"If I go train with you, will you stop complaining?" Zoro grumbled. Kenya brightened up immediately.

"Yay!" she cheered, bouncing up. "C'mon, let's go!"

"Little brat," he grunted, letting Kenya pull him towards the training room.

"I'm no brat," she growled back. "So what are we gonna do?"

"I dunno, that's what I wanna know," Zoro answered.

"What do you do when you train?" Kenya asked, bored, as she surveyed the training room. "Lift weights?"

"Pretty much," Zoro grunted, hefting a huge weight. "So buzz off if you don't feel like it."

"I have a better idea," Kenya said, bouncing towards him. "Let's spar. Fist fight. Whatever you wanna call it. It's gotta be better and more fun than just muscle building." Zoro sighed, dropped the weight, and took up a fighting stance.

"I'm not gonna go easy on you," he told her.

"Oh but I will," Kenya smirked.

**~Zoro's POV~**

Damn this brat gets on my nerves sometimes. Granted, not as much as that perverted cook does, but that's a different story. It's like she goes out of her way to annoy me, just to see how ticked off she can get me.

She's such a sadist.

We both faced each other, staring at our opponent, daring the other to make the first move. I swear we stood there for at least five minutes before she twitched. I noticed the movement immediately and readied myself. She charged forward, aiming a kick at my side. I blocked her leg with the side of my arm and countered with a kick of my own. She ducked and my leg merely swept her hair. She grinned toothily, once again showing off her unnervingly pointy canines, and swept her leg beneath me, aiming to knock me off my balance. I leaped back and once again we faced each other.

This time I struck first. I aimed my fist at her stomach, but she caught it and retaliated with a punch of her own. I dodged it easily and attempted to hit her with my free hand. She bent back to avoid the blow and simultaneously performed a backflip, nearly kicking me. I managed to jump back in time and for the third time we stood at stalemate.

Unexpectedly, she began to laugh. She sobered quickly and stared at me with a new determination.

"Not much has happened," she said. "I plan to change that." She leaped at me with twice the speed she had before and we exchanged punches and kicks, dodging and blocking hits.

Neither of us had gotten hurt yet.

Slowly the fight began to grow in intensity and we finally broke apart, both somewhat tired and sweating. We still hadn't managed to land a blow on the other, though there were quite a few close calls.

"Happy yet?" I asked. The words unintentionally sounded like a growl. She smirked.

"Seems like we're an even match," she said, not answering my question. She straightened up, notifying me that our spar was over. "It was fun though. I kinda lied. I didn't go easy on you but I definitely didn't go all out either."

"Neither did I," I admitted. I headed for the door when she suddenly tackled me.

"Hey, what the heck!" I yelled, attempting to shove the girl off me. She had latched herself onto me in a hug, not unlike the time when she had been drunk. She grinned mischievously at me, and with strength that you certainly wouldn't expect from a twelve year old girl, flung me onto the ground.

"I win!" she declared cheerfully. I propped myself up on my elbows and glared at the girl.

"That was unfair," I snarled. I got up and tackled myself at the girl, pinning her onto the floor. She smirked again and hooked her leg around my side and pushed me over so that our positions were reversed. I growled and pushed her so that she was beneath me again. I accidentally left one of her hands free, though, and she poked my side, causing me to jerk due to the sensitivity of the spot. We rolled around continuously like that, fighting to get on top.

Finally I managed to wrestle her down to the ground and pin her arms above her head. By then we were both out of breath and she was laughing.

"Alright, alright, I give!" she said, cheerful and breathless. "I'm happy enough now. You can let me go now."

"No," I growled. She blinked at me in surprise.

"You just forced me to spar with you, which ended in a tie. When I thought we were finally done with, you suddenly tackle me and we have another wrestling match. Now I'm tired _and _annoyed, so now you'll have to suffer punishment."

"... You'll do this how?"

"Are you ticklish?"

"... Oh shit!"

**~Regular POV~**

Zoro grinned evilly and began poking and prodding and tickling her, and Kenya laughed until she cried.

Unfortunately they had made quite a racket and as such, Usopp had ventured up to check what was going on.

"Hey Zo-" Usopp opened the door, took one look at the two on the floor in a seemingly intimate position and staring at him like deer caught in headlights, and slammed the door shut again. In a few moments, the door opened once more, and Usopp stared at them, confirming what he saw, and immediately began screaming for Ammy.

Zoro paled at the thought of what the wolf would do to him once she found him like this with Kenya, and he yelled at Usopp to shut the hell up. Kenya found the whole thing funny. That, or she was still feeling ticklish.

In any case, Zoro didn't escape quickly enough and soon everybody was crowding at the door, staring at the two. Their reactions varied greatly.

Luffy and Chopper were confused and wanted to know what they were doing. Brook and Franky attempted to explain in their own ways, making inappropriate comments as a result. Nami seemed to still be deciding what to feel while Robin was amused. Sanji screamed foul words, promises of torture, and the like at the swordsman. Usopp was bordering between scared for Zoro's life, laughing at Zoro and Kenya, and several other emotions. Ammy, predictably, was pissed. Kairi was making up his mind whether to be pissed that his little sister's virtue had been compromised or amused at the wolf's anger. The former emotion apparently won out in the end.

Long story short, Zoro was in for a whole lot of pain unless he could clear up the misunderstanding fast enough.

Kenya, being the sadist that she was, simply stayed where she was and watched the show.

Yeah, Zoro would have a good reason to be annoyed with the girl once he got through this. If he ever did, that is. Being Zoro, of course he would live. But Ammy and Kairi, as well as Nami and Sanji, who had come to think of Kenya as their little sister, were rather pissed off. And we all know that pissed off Nami is scary as hell, and angry Ammy is even more frightening. Kairi matched the two, and though Zoro was used to mad Sanji, it didn't make it any less painful.

Kenya was laughing the whole time.

**~Zoro's POV~**

Dammit Kenya, you are so paying for this later.

When Usopp walked in, I suddenly realized our position and immediately knew I was in a bad situation. I tried to get up but I felt an immense pressure. I glanced down and saw Kenya grinning evilly.

If I knew she was gonna abuse her power like this, I would've never gotten her that Devil Fruit.

In any case, they caught me and obviously misunderstood. While dodging the assaults of Nami, the wolf, the bird, and the stupid cook, I tried to yell an explanation at them but they refused to believe me. I wouldn't be resisting the urge to strangle Kenya right now if she hadn't been _laughing _the entire time.

In the end, a very confused Luffy got them to stop and have me explain what was going on to them.

Sometimes it's a good thing that our captain is so innocent, naive, gullible, ignorant... the list could go on.

I explained, the four causes of my pain were suspicious at first, but Kenya finally stopped laughing and wiping tears from her eyes (I wondered if her lungs hurt from laughing too long: first from me tickling her and then from my pain. I hoped they did) and announced that I was telling the truth. The bastards never apologized.

So that leads to me leaning against the mast, trying to sleep. Again.

I was trying to decide if Kenya joining our crew was a good or a bad thing. For me, so far, it had not been fun. But for the crew, she provided pretty much all we lacked, not to mention two other members (animals? pets?) with her. She was good at pretty much everything: fist fighting, sword fighting, navigating, sharp shooting, medicine, archeology, building/repairing, music... If for some reason any one of our other crew members were missing, she'd be able to fill in.

But she had quite a few unexpected weaknesses. Kenya nearly literally melted in heat, and the smallest sip of liquor would send her into a drunken madness. She was so ticklish it was funny.

And then she was mysterious. There were few times when I felt that her smile and laughter were from the heart. The first time was during her birthday; the next during Foxy's challenge. Most recently it had been during our sparring session. She got annoyed and impatient, but rarely truly angered. The only time I had seen her mad was against Tashigi, the marine.

Nobody knew where she came from. Even Ammy did not know; the wolf had found the child on the island, abandoned. She said few things about her feelings and herself, and even less about her past.

In a few words, Kenya is a very strange and enigmatic person.

**~Regular POV~**

Finally it was the day of the Battle Royale and Kenya was no longer extremely irritable in her excitement; rather, she now sat calmly next to Ammy, with Kairi perched on the wolf's shoulder, much to her dismay, and Zoro, who dozed off. The bird and wolf bickered incessantly while the girl watched the clouds. The other crew members were excited and impatient in their own ways.

Luffy, obviously, was the most impatient and complained to anyone who would listen. Nami spent her time attempting to ignore Luffy's whining and yelling at him to shut up while double checking her Perfect Clima-tact.

Meanwhile, Usopp was hyperventilating.

Moving on...

Sanji was bouncing back and forth from Nami, Robin, and Kenya, attempting to please and win the affections of each girl. Excluding Kenya of course, since that is a crime. Chopper was listening in awe to Franky's stories while Robin watched the scene, amused. Brook laughed his trademark laugh and filled the ship with beautiful music.

Finally Nami deemed it the right time to enter the city. With an exasperated, "FINALLY!" from Luffy, the crew headed towards the arena where the battles were to take place. There was a raven haired who glared at the crew with his uniquely colored indigo eyes, grumpily asked for their crew name, and let them through. They stood in awe as they took in the hugeness of the stadium. (If you must know, it was one and a half football fields.)

There, a woman bearing a certain resemblance to the man who had let them in escorted them to a small antechamber and she informed them that she would be bringing them information about the battles whenever needed. She explained that the room was theirs to use, and since the battles were taking place over a period of four days, they would be able to return to their ships or sleep in their room if they wished. Before the woman left, slightly creeped out by Sanji's advances, Kenya asked for her name. The woman was surprised, as if no one had asked her that or even cared about her name, and smiled, replying, "Chieko. My brother Hiromi was the one who let you in. I apologize for his rude behavior, he's merely wary that someone may sabotage the games." Kenya returned her smile and assured Chieko that they would allow no such thing to happen.

For an hour, the crew wandered the room restlessly, like caged lions waiting to be fed. They were tense, impatient, and eager for the most part, and in some cases, scared and anxious. In any case, when Chieko finally arrived an hour later to tell them the details of their first battle, they all but bit her head off. The woman seemed to be used to this behavior though, and ignored them.

"The first battle is a free-for-all, no rules, straight up brawl," Chieko said. "All the pirate crews will select three of their members, since most crews are much larger than yours, and those three will enter the stadium. All three must be remaining for you to advance to the next round. The last 50 teams standing will continue on. You can use any abilities you have and if necessary, you may kill."

"Yosh!" Luffy said cheerfully. "I want to go! Who else?"

"I want to!" Kenya declared. She bounced over to Luffy's side.

"One more person," Chieko murmured softly.

"I'll go," Zoro and Sanji said at the same time. Obviously, they broke out into a petty argument and decided to use Jankenpon to decide, and they still refused to let the other take their place. Finally Ammy and Nami snapped at them, saying that they were holding up the battles and told them to flip a coin.

Sanji won, much to Zoro's dismay. Well, I can't really say that _Zoro_ is _dismayed_, so let's say... disappointment. The cook half expected to hear the wolf barking at him and Luffy to take care of Kenya, but to his surprise nothing of the sort came. Instead, Ammy told them:

"Don't let Kenya run too wild. You'll definitely regret it."

Sanji remembered Ammy's words before.

_"You also... have... to carry... Kenya," she said, panting between words. "She's... extremely... sensitive... to heat... Like... a vampire... almost..."_

Then Sanji understood.

Kenya was like a vampire in more ways that just sensitivity to light and heat.

**~Sanji's POV~**

So that's how it went.

The three of us entered the stadium, which was already filled with people and even more were flooding in. There were a shit load of people, even more than we had expected. We had a makeshift game plan made up; since I would not, could not, harm a woman, Luffy would take care of the women who attempted to attack me. He would also, of course, attack the men but he took my share of the females. And Kenya... Well, Kenya did was Kenya does best. Before Hiromi announced the beginning of the brawl, Kenya gave us a warning.

"Either stay very close to me or far, far away, unless you want to die."

We heard and understood the tone; even Luffy obeyed wordlessly.

"Aaand... begin!" Hiromi yelled into his microphone.

It was as if Hell itself broke in and made best friends with Anarchy. There were a surprising amount of Devil Fruit users, considering the rareness of them, so off course those caused lots of chaos. But the others with no powers, like me, were well above decent fighters, though I felt that none of them reached our level. Well, most of them. The ones who went above and beyond us, Kenya steered clear of, and we followed lest we die like she had warned.

Which turned out to be a very smart move.

Despite being short and young, Kenya was strong. Though I had feared that she would not be able to keep up with us (a foolish worry, I soon realized), I found that I was the one having trouble following her. The three of us stuck close together, Luffy using his stretchiness being the only one who strayed farther than two and a half feet.

Kenya's air powers were frightening. Giant, powerful, muscled men dropped to the ground like flies with no apparent reason, and I knew that she had either quite literally taken their breath away, or pressured their heads to unconsciousness. When something sharp and pointy came too close for comfort, Kenya blew it and the person responsible for it away, or snatched it from said person and gave the person a nice kick. I smirked to myself as I noticed my kicking style appearing in Kenya's fighting more and more often. I was apparently rubbing off on her.

Not to say that Luffy wasn't either. Though Kenya of course wasn't made of rubber, her punches were just as strong as Luffy's, which is saying a _lot_. And when she managed to get hold of a nice sword, she mimicked Marimo-head's style.

And all this while still making it unique to herself by adding a bit of air usage here and there, using her own styles and blending them with ours.

Jack of all trades, and King of them all too. A phrase truly fitting Kenya.

**~Kenya's POV~**

Find a victim, pressure his head till it exploded into a bloody mass or deprive him of air till he was knocked out from lack of oxygen, impale anybody who got too close with the katana I had taken from a dead body, step over corpses, repeat. Somewhere in there, occasionally I had to add "keep Sanji-nii from lusting over every woman within a 50 meter radius" and "remember not to kill/hurt/injure/otherwise inconvenience my crewmates".

Absentmindedly I licked the blood off of my hand, knowing that it wasn't mine. I loved the salty, metal taste of it. Nothing quite beat the taste of blood. Of course, I had to keep track of how much I actually licked off. You can't ever be too careful when you're _this_ close away from being addicted to blood.

There were a _lot_ of people. Just the way I liked it. And they didn't mind being killed either. They all knew that the moment they had stepped inside, they had given up their lives. Which made it all the better. So much more fun.

Some might call it mindless slaughter, I thought absently as I slashed a burly, muscled man across the chest. Blood spurted out from the wound, covering me in even more crimson liquid. Continuing the motion, I parried a blow from another swordsman and stabbed him the the heart. I withdrew the blade and he slumped to the ground. I clenched my left fist and a woman who was beginning to take advantage of Sanji-nii and Luffy-nii's absence as he dealt with a particularly tough Devil Fruit user (had the ability to turn to stone, if I remember correctly) dropped to the ground without a sound.

I prefer to think of it as a a game, I grinned as I finished my thought. My left hand clenched again as I whirled around, slicing off a man's head. In his hand was a dagger. I kicked this up and caught it with my free hand and slid the weapon into my belt. Nearby, the rock man froze as he was pressured with air, the after-effects of my clenched fist. My captain made good use of this pause in movement and delivered a swift punch to the face. He shook out his fist, blocking a bullet that had strayed near Sanji-nii with his rubber body, directing it back at the offender. With the combination of air pressure and the hard punch, the rock man's body began to crack. Literally.

While I was distracted with my thoughts, Sanji-nii kicked a man who had come dangerously close to me. I watched with amusement as the man flew twenty feet up into the air and thirty feet forward, an arc of blood following. I gave Sanji-nii a quick nod of thanks before casually throwing the dagger into a woman's thigh. The woman, who had crept up to the cook, whimpered, crumpling to the ground and clutching her wound. I left her breathless, unconscious from need of air, and turned around to deflect a stray bullet with my katana. The sword broke and I snorted, tossing the broken blade at the woman with the dagger in her thigh, cutting off her head. I pulled the dagger out of her leg and threw it with deadly accuracy at the man who had shot at me.

With no weapons now, I relied on my fists, my kicks, and my air. I had been carefully observing my teammates and now mimicked their movements. With all my training back at the island, I had been fighting against objects without a brain and animals who fought with their instincts. Fighting against people was not new, but I was still unused to it. So it was better to start out copying others until I grew accustomed to this kind of fighting.

All the while, Sanji-nii and Luffy-nii followed my advice about staying close to me. It was for their own safety, really. If they didn't stay far, far away from me where I wouldn't be able to harm them, I might have attacked them, since in my bloodied frenzy I did not pay attention to who or what I killed or attacked. If they did not stay far from me, they would have to keep close enough where I could recognize them.

Just as I crushed another man with air, Hiromi yelled into the mic, "The battle ends! The teams moving onto the next round are: the SNSLTS crew, Poppa Pi, Kristal Katana, the Straw Hat Pirates..." He continued listing the 50 winning teams in no apparent order. I had heard our teams name and that was all that mattered. The other teams had ridiculous names and I had no patience to listen to the man ramble on about them all. The captain, Sanji-nii, and I returned to our room, not paying attention to the pirate crews. The others would be doing that. However, there was one name that interested me.

"...The Silver Dragons, the..."

Silver Dragons... Hm...

* * *

_Ooo, foreshadowing! Yeah, the SD crew (Silver Dragons) come in later, but WHOOPS THAT'S A SPOILER._

_Yeah, there isn't much to say about this chapter other than it was fun and that it's bloody._

_Don't forget to read Ryuu's counterpart to this story, Paths to a Dead Heart. It tells the story from a different perspective, kind of like the xxxHolic to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, if you know what I mean. Except that Paths to a Dead Heart is more closely tied than those Clamp stories._

_Reviews/criticism/questions?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)_

PPL! PLEASE READ MY STORIES! AND PLEASE REVIEW SO WE KNOW WHAT TO PUT IN OUR STORIES AND IF YOU PPL LIKE IT OR NOT! THANK YOU ~Ryuu

__


	8. Chapter 8

_Hey, Kai here again y'all, with a new chapter of Peace in a Pirate's Heart~ Ryuu's still studying for her finals, so I'm uploading all these chapters by myself. :3_

_This chapter is kind of short, and it has lots of Ammy in it, for all you people who love short-tempered, foul mouthed, overprotective wolves that kick ass. :D_

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai_

OMG! GOMEN KAI~ T-T I FEEL BAD FOR MAKIN' U DO ALL THE WORK!

~Ryuu

**

* * *

~Ammy's POV~**

Silver Dragons. Silver Dragons. Silver Dragons. OK seriously, this was getting ridiculous.

Where the _hell_ have I heard that name before?

It certainly wasn't easy remembering when the entire crowd of watchers was murmuring about how the Straw Hat Pirates were famous despite our small size and how there were new unknown members (I snorted. Kenya and I would never stay unknown for long, and Kairi was just along for the ride.) and about this stupid Silver Dragons crew that was supposedly similar to our crew. Except that they were known for killing every single one of their enemies.

Hm... Silver Dragons.

OK I need to stop thinking about that. It's starting to get on my nerves, and I don't seem to be remembering it anyways.

I finally began tuning into the chatter of my crew members. Kairi was being perverted, as usual, and was rambling on, apparently unaware to the fact that I wasn't listening. Kenya was dozing off in a corner, sitting with her legs crossed and arms folded, leaning against the wall. I smiled at the sight. It was rare that Kenya slept during the daytime, and it proved her trust in our crew members that they would protect her in the unlikely event that something happened. No matter how safe or secure a place, Kenya never let down her guard unless she was _absolutely sure _of her safety.

The swordsman was cleaning his swords while the cook was being his retarded self. The navigator was pumped up and working with Usopp to revise her Clima Tact. Chopper and Robin were having a nice conversation, while the speedo-cyborg and our silly captain were off doing... something. The perverted skeleton (why do we have so many perverts on board, I wondered. They better not rub off on Kenya, or there will be blood shed.) was tuning his violin and sharpening his sword.

The woman and her brother (Chieko and Hiromi, I remembered absentmindedly) reentered the room, apparently having something important to say.

"Congratulations on making it through," Chieko told us with a smile. "The second battle will begin tomorrow. It will test your individual skills. This time five members will participate. Those who have taken part in the first round cannot fight. Each person will be taken to an individual room and will fight against a different team. You must have at least three of the five battles won to advance."

"Aw..." the captain whined. "I wanted to fight in this one too!"

"We will come back to see who is participating tomorrow in an hour," Hiromi said coldly. "Please decide by then." With that, the siblings walked out.

"So me, Luffy, and Kenya-chan can't fight," Sanji said. "That leaves Zoro, Nami-san, Usopp, Chopper, Robin-chan, Franky, Brook, Ammy, and Kairi..."

"I will fight," I said, stepping forward.

"As will I," the archeologist put in, standing up.

"I'm going this time," Zoro growled, sheathing his sword. Apparently he was sore about not being able to go the first time.

"Yohohohoho!" the skeleton laughed. "I suppose I should join you three!" The remaining people looked at each other.

"One more person," the navigator said slowly.

"I'll go!" the reindeer volunteered, hopping off the bench.

The five of us looked at each other, smiles forming on our faces and we nodded to each other. We all understood: even if you didn't win, we all will try our best and no one would take the blame.

I went over to Kenya and lay down protectively before her, closing my eyes.

This battle should be interesting.

**~Regular POV~**

Kenya did not want to be awake. No, she would much rather be cuddling up with Ammy, the wolf curled around her protectively like a wolf with her cubs, a description which would actually be rather accurate. Or, at least, Kenya wanted to be lying on a bed, sheets wrapped snugly around her. In fact, even a rock for a pillow and concrete to lay on would be very appealing at the moment.

It was no wonder why Kenya was very pissed off when Brook attempted to wake her up with his "morning wake up call".

Ammy growled, not even cracking open an eye as she flattened her ears down and covered them with her paws, attempting to go back to sleep. Kairi was even less responsive; he simply shifted his position and went right on snoring. (Can birds snore?) Unfortunately for everyone else, the obnoxiously loud music was just too much to bear and they were all startled out of their sleep.

They then decided it might be a good idea to go outside and find somewhere else to sleep where a skeleton wouldn't be sawing away at his violin at 2:30 in the morning.

Also, they wisely decided that staying away from a raging, sleep deprived Kenya was beneficial to their well-being.

Hell, even Brook decided to abandon his violin to leave after thirty seconds. Fucking Kairi even woke up, muttered something about inherited short temper, and flew away. Ammy quietly stalked after the rest of the crew.

Chieko and Hiromi stirred from their sleep, sitting up tiredly in their beds as they hear a distant screaming and crashes.

"WHY in FUCKING HELL would you FUCKING START PLAYING YOUR SHITTY PIECE OF WOOD AND STRING AT 2:30 IN THE FUCKING MORNING! You BASTARD, SON OF A BITCH, SLUT, WHORE, fucking ASSHOLISH JACKASS, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF REST AND FUCKING RELAXATION! WHY THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN UP BEFORE SIX! SHITTY FUCKING HELL, I SWEAR TO GOD YOU RETARDED FUCKTARD, I WILL ONE DAY DISSEMBLE YOUR FUCKING BONES AND-"

Chieko and Hiromi decided to stop listening after that. Chieko also wondered if she should invest in earmuffs.

**~Zoro's POV~**

My ears hurt like hell. We had left three hours ago, and were now returning to our room.

Kenya was still mad. Enough said.

However, she had quieted down considerably since the wolf had gotten fed up and told the girl to shut up and go to sleep or she would duct tape her mouth. Kenya muttered colorful words under her breath and sulked in a corner, and despite the anger that radiated from her, she managed to return to sleep. The others joined her, and Brook was laughing his Yohoho... Sometimes I wonder about that man.

Correction: skeleton.

In any case, we slept for a solid four hours and woke up refreshed and content.

Minus Kenya. Sure, outside she seemed somewhat calmer. But as I had mentioned long before, if you wanted to know how she truly felt at the moment, look at her eyes. And those orbs told me that she was just as pissed as before.

Ammy seemed to be the only other one who could read her feelings. I wondered to myself how the brat had gotten that way.

The woman and her brother (I hadn't bothered to learn their names yet, I could care less) walked in and announced that the second round would be beginning in an hour. The man also growled irritably, complaining about the screaming that had occurred earlier in the morning, and asked if any of us knew about it.

Kenya grinned, innocently cheerful, and said, "Nope, didn't hear a thing!"

I smirked to myself at the blatant lie. _Damn brat_, I thought to myself, amused.

The two believed her, though, and left without anything else. Kenya curled up on a bench, attempting sleep once more. Kairi came and perched on her shoulder, watching over her protectively. Those participating in the second round (me, Ammy, Robin, Brook, and Chopper) readied ourselves while the others did what they did best: be morons.

Exactly an hour later, the woman and man returned to announce who our opponents were.

"You will be fighting the Silver Dragons," the woman said. "The five participants, please follow us. The others may come as well, but only to watch." All of us got up and followed the woman and her brother to wherever they led us.

To our mild surprise, we were met with a see-through glass wall. On the other side were people, supposedly the Silver Dragons we were fighting. Their numbers were the same as ours.

"Pick your opponents," the man said. "The Straw Hats will pick first." The others looked expectantly at me, apparently wanting me to choose first. My eyes sweeped over the other crew, narrowing in on the sword at one's hip. I smirked.

"Him," I said, pointing to the swordsman. The man nodded and swiftly led us into a separate room.

"Fight until the other is defeated or dead," he ordered, and he left. I looked at my opponent as he looked at me. I grinned devilishly.

"Hello there."

**~Ammy's POV~**

"Alright, Shirayuki-san, you choose next," Chieko said when Hiromi returned. She gestured to a woman, around twenty years of age, on the other team. She had light, golden-brown hair and her eyes were a startling pale blue, almost white. The woman was also disturbingly pale.

_Someone needs a tan, _I thought to myself grumpily.

"I choose the wolf," she murmured. My ears twitched at the sound of her harmonious voice, which was annoyingly familiar. I recognized it, but I couldn't remember who it had belonged to, which was odd since my memory was near perfect despite a long 300 years of life.

It was rather irritating, to say the least.

"Fine, this way, Shirayuki-san, Ammy-san," Chieko said, leading us into a different room. The door closed when she left and I faced my opponent. I eyed her, trying to determine how she fought. I growled in annoyance; she had no weapons, therefore she fought bare-handed, was a Devil Fruit user, or had some other concealed power.

Then she flashed a feral grin, showing off uncannily pointed canines. My fur bristled, and a memory flashed across my field of vision. My eyes widened.

"No way... You're..."

**~Regular POV~**

"Robin-kun, you're next," Hiromi commented when his sister reentered the room. The archeologist nodded and analyzed each of her potential opponents.

"The young lady over there," Robin said, pointing to an eighteen year old (or so it seemed) girl with aquamarine eyes and a darker shade of the color for her hair.

"Alright, Suka-kun, Robin-kun, follow," Hiromi said as he led the two into yet another room. He left them to begin their fight.

"Suka-san.. Was it?" Robin said.

"Yes it was," the girl replied. "Robin-san, I hope we can have a good match." Robin nodded and smiled.

"Best of luck to both of us," the older woman said. Then they took up their fighting stances.

* * *

"Len-san, choose your opponent," Chieko said, this time not even bothering for her brother's return. The boy was around sixteen, and had messy silverish-gray hair and blue eyes. For apparently no reason, he had a pair of black goggles on his fore head.

"Sweet!" he grinned. "I wanna fight the skeleton dude!" Chieko smiled warmly at the boy's antics.

"Alright, Len-san, Brook-san, this way."

"Len-kun, I hope that the battle that is forthcoming will please both of us," Brook said, sweeping a gentlemanly bow. The boy grinned.

"Whatever you said, right back atcha!"

* * *

"Chopper-kun, you're last," Hiromi said as he passed his sister, entering the room. "You and Ryuu-kun," he was talking about the seemingly over grown hyena, "will follow me." They did so obediently.

_Hmph, a walking, talking reindeer and an overgrown mutt, _Hiromi mused as he left the two. _Fitting_.

**~Zoro's POV~**

The kid in front of me somehow strangely reminded me of Kenya. Strange because he was nothing like the brat. He had messy light brown hair and glittering emerald eyes. She had black hair with yellow streaks and deep blue, nearly black, eyes.

As my hand reached for a sword, I suddenly realized _why_ the kid reminded me of Kenya.

His eyes were the same. Bored, full of hurt and betrayal.

"Kid, what's your name?" I asked in a low voice. We both shifted into battle stances, ready for one to make the first move. I drew all three of my swords and clenched on in my teeth. I knew it wasn't time for small talk, but I had to know.

"Mason," the kid answered. He unsheathed his sword. "My name is Mason."

**~Ammy's POV~**

Damn. I hadn't expected this.

"Fifteen years, Ammy-san," Shirayuki murmured. She crouched down like a cat ready to pounce.

"Fifteen years since your family murdered mine," I spat out, fur bristling as my muscles tensed. Her eyes slitted and her body changed.

"A snow leopard, eh?" I snorted. I lowered my head and glared at her. "Fitting."

"Still as impatient as ever," the leopard smiled. "That has never changed."

"No, it has," I snarled. "It got worse when you betrayed me." She flinched.

"I never betrayed you!" she roared, springing into the air, claws outstretched. I snarled as I rolled away. Both of us got back on our feet and whirled around at each other.

"Oh? Then why the hell are they all DEAD!" This time it was my turn to leap, beads circling me and lashing out with elements. She howled, dodging to the side, but not quick enough. Fire singed her coat and one of my claws cut her shoulder. Blood slowly trickled out of the wound.

"Because..." She faltered as she hesitated to answer. I charged at her, and her eyes widened as she barely avoided my attack. Where her fur had once been burnt and covered in ash from fire, it was now frozen and covered in ice crystals. She shook the ice off and stared at me again with those pale, ice blue eyes. She knew I was serious; I knew she wasn't.

_Even after all these years and all that_, I thought as my eyes narrowed and I readied myself for my next attack, _She still refuses to seriously injure me. _The beads circled me again.

_What a bitch.

* * *

_

_Ooo... Suspense! Shirayuki and the Silver Dragons come into the picture... And who is this Mason kid? Could it be...?_

_Yeah, no. I'm not telling. =P_

_Don't forget to read Ryuu's counterpart to this story (Paths to a Dead Heart) if you haven't already. It's like the xxxHolic to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, if you know what I mean. And I demand that you read it. It's like Peace in a Pirate's Heart told from a different point of view and the hidden side of the story. READ IT._

_Reviews/criticism/questions?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	9. Chapter 9

_Hey y'all, sorry for the delay. I've been at some dance performances, and I had a few last minute projects due in school. I think I should be able to get some chapters up now though._

_A decently long chapter with the finale to everyone's fights._

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

**

* * *

~Regular POV~**_  
_ "A weapons master, I see," Robin said as arms appeared everywhere to catch all manner of weapons: knives, scythes, those ninja throwing stars (shuriken, Robin remembered), swords, Robin swore she even saw maces and a few axes.

"Those hands must come in handy, eh?" Suka grinned, twirling a chain with a scythe attached to the end. "Wish I had those." The scythe came hurtling towards Robin at a dangerous speed, pointy end first. Robin dodged it and caught it with one of her many hands, twirling it back at her opponent.

"Indeed, it seems like you would put them to very good use," Robin commented as she hurled the weapons back to their owner. The girl was much more coordinated than she let on, however, and she caught each weapon and placed it back in her arsenal of weapons she had not yet used. "You seem to be doing fine without the extra arms though."

"Yup, but think of how much more I could do with them!" Suka said cheerfully as she pulled out a staff. She vaulted it like a pro, landing on her feet, swinging the staff at Robin. The archeologist caught the blow with an arm, extra hands cushioning the blow. Suka dropped the staff and swept a leg under Robin, hoping to knock her off balance. Robin took a light jump back to dodge it and swung the staff down on the girl, who expertly caught it and spun it above her head, ready for the next attack. Robin smiled.

"I do believe this could be quite a match," Robin said. Suka grinned.

"Yup!"

* * *

"Wait, we can't even WATCH!" Luffy complained when Chieko and Hiromi told the two crews to return to their rooms. Chieko shook her head.

"I'm afraid not," she said. "Part of the individual battles is to be able to fight without the support of your crew. Please return to your rooms and we will inform you when and who is the victor of the battles." The remainder of the Straw Hat crew looked at each other exasperatedly, and the Silver Dragons looked just as worried.

"They'll be fine," Sanji said at last. "C'mon, you know them. They won't lose." Only somewhat convinced, the Straw Hats reluctantly returned to their room. Most of them were worried at least to a slight degree.

"Sanji is right," Luffy declared. "They'll win for sure. So we gotta stop worrying and believe in them!"

"Yeah, the only thing we can do now is wait for them," Nami agreed.

And so they waited and hoped and believed.

* * *

Len pulled the goggles over his eyes and from his pocket pulled out a flute. Brook unsheathed his sword and prepared himself.

"Is that your weapon?" Brook asked in mild surprise. This was a first: nobody he had met so far had ever used an instrument as a weapon.

"Yup!" Len said cheerfully, swinging the flute. To Brook's surprise, the flute extended into a metal staff.

"I see," Brook murmured. Len grinned and charged. The ring of metal clashing with metal resounded through the air. "Are you not worried about your instrument being broken?"

"Suka made it for me," Len answered, whirling around and parrying Brook's swing. "All of her creations, mostly weapons, are made from the toughest steel. It won't even scratch."

"Oh? We'll see about that," Brook chuckled, slashing at the staff. Len blocked the blow with both hands, but to his surprise a small scratch appeared where Brook had hit. Len grinned.

"Nice," he murmured. "It's been a while since I've had a challenge..."

* * *

Ryuu snarled and snapped at Chopper, who squeaked, "Walk point!" and dodged the hyena's teeth. The beast turned and stared the reindeer down, growls erupting from its throat and its mouth locked in a permanent snarl.

"Heavy point!" Chopper transformed into his "human" form and began attacking his opponent, who clumsily dodged out of the way. Chopper leaped back, leaving a healthy distance between the two, and transformed to his Brain Point. He decided he needed to use a Rumble Ball, NOW. Ryuu had already begun snapping at his limbs and many times Chopper had barely escaped.

"Rumble!" Chopper bit into the pill. "Scope!" _Aha! His stomach!_ "Jump point!" The reindeer leaped high above his opponent's head, landing behind the bewildered hyena. He slid under the beast, quickly changed into Arm point and punched Ryuu's stomach. The hyena whimpered and was sent flying.

And it simply lay there.

**~Ammy's POV~**

Instinct.

That's all I was going on now. Kill or be killed, hunt or be hunted. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, kill for a kill.

Well. There was only one person available for killing in return for over a dozen. But it would have to do.

They say that love is blind. If that is so, then hate and rage are senseless. They block out everything and all is seen through a red haze.

Absently, I remembered that the red was blood.

A scream. It wasn't mine; that's all that mattered.

Fires burned all over the room. Somewhere in my mind, I recalled that I had caused those.

Frost covered her coat. I envied her somewhat; the heat was near unbearable. As I reflexively used my beads to cool myself down, I thought that she might be _too_ cold.

The door opened and Chieko walked in. Emotionless, she escorted me out, passing her brother as he entered. When I saw him next, he was dragging Shirayuki's limp body out of the burning room.

**~Zoro's POV~**

When I first saw the kid, I knew he was gonna be tough. But I hadn't expected him to be at _this_ level of difficulty.

We spent the first several minutes poised for battle, daring the other to make the first move with our eyes. In the end, young will be as young are, impatient and frustrated, he gave in and charged, sword flashing in the light.

Hmph. No wasted or excess movement, so efficient and movements so perfect, lacking sloppiness, that it was nearly scary.

With two quick slashes almost too quick for the eye to see, he nearly stabbed my face and cut the bandanna off my arm. My eyes narrowed as I quickly changed from defense to offense.

But fuck, was the kid _fast!_ He was dodging so quickly he was a blur and I had a hard time pinpointing where he was in that mess. It was like trying to cut down a feather; it just won't stop damn moving!

I growled in frustration and finally gave up, leaping back to leave a healthy distance between us. I took a deep breath to steady myself, pulling the bandanna off my arm and tying it on my head, as was my habit when I became serious. The kid readied himself in a single, swift, fluid motion, not slowing down to be dramatic like some fools did. I smirked.

Heh. This kid was serious business.

In the same instant, we leaped at each other, metal clashing with a clear ring resounding through the air. We began the deadly dance of blades, weaving in and out, parrying and dodging stabs and slashes, each barely avoiding being cut to ribbons.

Finally, I slashed at him with a sword, which he blocked, and added the other two swords to add even more pressure as he slowly began to slide back. His eyes darted behind him, mouth locked in a snarl when he realized he was close to being cornered with his back to the wall. His eyes turned back to me with new determination. When his feet touched the wall, he jumped up and kicked off the wall, soaring above my head. I whirled around just in time to block his sword, which would have cut across my back if I had been a second late.

Now I was the one cornered. But hell, I don't care if the kid was the second best fucking swordsman in the world, there was _no_ way I was losing. With one arm already keeping him occupied, I swung at him with my other, the blade nearly taking his head off had he not quickly retreated. I maneuvered myself away from the wall and once again, we were at stalemate.

The kid muttered something under his breath that I couldn't hear.

"Ah? Say again?" I asked, readying myself.

"We're too evenly matched," he murmured, louder this time so that I heard.

"I agree with you on that one. We could be here for quite a while if just want us to duke it out till one of us loses," I answered. I could've ended this with one of my special moves, but most of them would've blown the room to pieces and others I didn't want to resort to till I lost my swords or something other than that. But I had a suspicion that he was holding back as well for similar reasons.

"So let's end this," the kid said, slowly raising his sword toward my neck. I suddenly realized what he was doing and I raised my sword as well. Now both of us had a sword at each other's necks. The slightest wrong move and either of us could easily kill each other.

Neither of us moved. Neither of us _could_ move. All we could do was wait until someone realized that it was taking too long and came to get us to declare out match a draw.

**~Regular POV~**

Chopper stared at Ryuu's limp body warily in case the beast stood back up. When the hyena didn't move, Chopper cautiously took a step towards it.

The next thing Chopper knew was that he was bleeding with three claws stuck in his stomach, pinned against the wall with Ryuu's face in front of his, eyes glowing blood red.

_How..._ And then Chopper fainted.

* * *

To Brook's surprise, Len folded his flute into its original form.

"What do you intend to do with it in that form?" the skeleton asked, readying his sword.

"Do you really think I'd tell an enemy?" Len sneered as he placed the flute to his lips. "Even if he is an awesome walking, talking pile of bones?"

"I shall take that as a compliment," Brook answered in a low, dangerous tone, tipping his hat lower. "Very well. En guard!" He held his sword up and Len placed the flute to his lips.

Then he began to play.

* * *

Robin shifted her stance as she realized that Suka was attacking with a different tactic. Rather than throwing the weapons concealed all over her body, she was now using them as they were made to be used. Robin smiled and began to fight seriously as the younger girl came at her with a sword.

"Clutch!" Suka stopped abruptly in her tracks as arms sprouted from her back and began to grab her in a way that would easily snap her neck. With a single, fluid movement, the girl sheathed her sword, grabbed a dagger that was just beneath it from its hilt and stabbed its blade into the nearest arm. Robin flinched as a trickle of blood appeared on both the stabbed arm and on her own arm. Suka smirked as she pulled the dagger out with a sickening squelch and raised it for another jab. The arms quickly disappeared and the girl quietly sheathed the dagger and withdrew her sword once more.

"Found out your weak spot, eh?" Suka grinned. Robin was unfazed as she wiped away the blood.

"Seis Fleur Twist," she said calmly, as arms once more protruded from Suka and began to twist her around in an abnormal way. For good measure, Robin added a few more arms to grasp the girl's arm so that she wouldn't be able to reach any of her weapons.

Or so the archeologist thought.

Suka had inched her way over to the staff that was laying discarded on the ground. This she kicked up with her foot and grabbed with her hand. Despite her limited movement, she managed to beat the arms away. Robin stubbornly held on, refusing to lose her grasp as she tightened her hold, slowly twisting the girl more and more to the point where her back was about to break. Suka clenched her teeth in pain but didn't cry out, something that Robin admired. In a last ditch effort, the girl twisted her neck and bit into one of the arms with teeth sharper than they appeared. Robin winced and twisted a bit more, not wanting to rob the girl of her life just yet, but not wanting to submit either. Silently, Robin hoped that the girl would give up so that she wouldn't need to kill her.

Neither woman released their holds, Suka biting harder and harder as Robin twisted her back as slowly as she could. Though that would prolong the pain, Robin rationalized, it would give the girl more time to think things through and forfeit. Finally, the girl's spinal cord was at its limit and there was a sickening crack heard. With a quick cry of pain, Suka loosened her jaw and crumpled to the ground as Robin's arms disappeared, leaving a deep, bleeding bite mark and a bloody wound on each of her real arms. Robin's gaze softened as she looked down at the girl.

"It was a good battle," she said softly. "I hope you have someone to live for... And make sure you don't disappoint them with death."

Then the raven-haired archeologist left the room.

* * *

Brook's brain (if he had one, being a skeleton) felt like it was splitting in half.

Len played and swayed to the music, the sounds emitted from the flute so high pitched that it was barely within the range of human hearing, yet played so loudly that it made Brook's ears ache. The skeleton was surprised that they hadn't started bleeding yet.

Brook knew that if he was to stop the hell-music, he had to get the flute away from Len. But the pain was so unbearable that he could. Not. Fucking. MOVE!

Len's lips formed a smirk against the cold metal as he continued to play. He had accomplished his goal. Now if he wanted to win this rather than paralyze and torture his opponent, he had to step it up a bit.

The music changed from an earsplitting noise to a low tone that nearly lulled Brook to sleep. He managed to keep on his feet, but his recovery from the high-pitched screeches before was not so quick. Sluggishly, he began to move towards Len when suddenly his vision became darker and blurry. The skeleton froze in his tracks.

_Hypnosis?_ Brook wondered, somehow managing to think coherently. This suspicion was confirmed when the boy's form changed from normal to a blur of colors. The world that Brook saw changed drastically. Suddenly, he found himself in a room full of flames, unbearable heat licking at him.

_Must be hell,_ he managed to think. _But how is he able to stand it? He's not covering his ears..._

But the goggles covered his eyes. Brook suddenly realized how Len's fighting style worked. The sound affected the brain waves so that you saw images, and according to the image your brain registered what it thought it should: pain if you saw yourself getting "hurt", heat if you "saw" flames.  
_A wonderful trick_, Brook thought. _And I have no tactic to counter it..._  
And the skeleton collapsed on the ground.

Len smirked and stopped playing, pulling his goggles to his forehead once more.

"Good game, Mr. Skeleton," he commented, tossing the flute into the air. He watched it spiral a few times in the air before walking away, catching it behind his back with his other hand without a backwards glance.

**~Zoro's POV~**

I knew that they were gonna take a while, since the rules of the game were to, "Fight until one is dead or otherwise incapable of fighting back," and the two of us were most certainly capable of fighting. Neither of us had even gotten serious yet, but we both knew that when we did, the match would end with both of us unconscious or dead, and the risk of death was just not fucking worth it.

But my arm was tired. It. Was. Very. Fucking. Tired. And I wasn't alone, the kid looked just as irritated, annoyed, impatient, and tired as I was.

Hell, we had been standing there for what must've been a good two hours with our swords at each other's necks, not moving an inch. If we did, we would've killed the other. That was a cheap shot. And honorable swordsmen don't do cheap shots.

_Where are those two?_ I nearly growled out loud, but managed to simply think it in my mind. _I know for a fact that they watch the battles. Otherwise, how the hell would they know when a person loses? OK, so maybe they think that we might start fighting again. But we've been standing here like statues for at LEAST two and a half hours and they STILL AREN'T HERE. GOD DAMMIT._

"They are beginning to get on my nerves," the boy snarled impatiently. I saw his sword waver a tiny bit, and my eyes narrowed. If his arm got tired...

Then the door opened. FINALLY. Thank God... even though I'm an atheist.

"It's about fucking time," I snarled as Chieko walked in.

"We had to make sure," she said, apologetic. "This match will be declared a draw, the only draw in the history of these games. You may lower your weapons. Your other teammates have concluded their matches two and a half hours ago, with two losses and two wins to each side." The kid and I lowered our swords, sheathing them as we followed the woman out of the room.

"So which team advances?" I asked.

"Both," she replied. "Hiromi will take you to your crew, Mason-san. Zoro-san, please follow me." The kid and I exchanged a glance and nod, and he went off to follow the woman's brother.

"Who won and who lost?" I asked as we arrived at the Straw Hat's room.

"Chopper-san and Brook-san have lost and both are injured rather severely, but both will survive," she informed me quietly. "Kenya-san and some of our medics are attending to them at the moment. Amaterasu-san and Robin-san have both won, both them and their opponents injured as well. There were no casualties this round."

"Hm... Thanks," I said, entering the room. Robin, Ammy, Chopper, and Brook were all being wrapped in bandages. Well... Not really Brook. Not much you can do about a skeleton. And from what I could tell, he hadn't been injured much. So how did he lose?

"You may call either me or my brother if you are in need of assistance," Chieko said, bowing. "The medics will leave shortly after they finish treating your crew mates." I waved a hand absently, and she left. I observed all of their injuries. I, like Brook, hadn't been hurt so nobody came to treat me. Chopper was probably the most severely injured: he had three bloody gashes on his stomach that looked pretty bad. Robin had a few cuts and what seemed like a bite mark on her arms, but was otherwise uninjured. Ammy looked fine except for a few minor cuts here and there. The medics finished up and left.

"So..." Franky looked at the five of us. "Anybody gonna tell us how their battles went?"

**~Kenya's POV~**

I didn't hear what Zoro-nii and the others were saying as they described their fights, prompted by Franky-nii. The moment Zoro-nii had entered the room, I had begun to feel a chill that reached my bones. In an attempt to keep myself warm and protected from the sudden biting cold, I had curled up into fetal position with my back to a corner of the room. No one had paid attention to me since they were all absorbed in the telling of the battles.

No one seemed to notice the cold either.

For no reason, memories had begun flooding my brain, mostly of Mason and the times before the islanders had accepted me, with a few images of Kyuubou and Kyonda thrown into the mix.

_"Kenny!"_

_Emerald green eyes, messy light brown hair._

_"Hey, Mase. Your mom finally let you out?"_

_"Yeah. She's so frustrating."_

_"I had to work for a long time before she let me take a break."_

_"It's worth it to see you though."_

_"Wolf child, Devil child, Wild child!"_

_"Hehe, you guys are so cute! I gotta name you guys. Oh, I know! The fox will be Kyuubou and the ferret will be Kyonda! We're gonna be bestest friends!"_

_"You live with a wolf?"_

_"Ammy is really nice. She takes care of me like a real mom!"_

_"Hey Macy._

_He looked like he hadn't been living for the past three months._

_"I feel terrible. I... I told my mom about you. You know how parents gossip."_

_I didn't, but I nodded anyways._

_"Ken... I'm so sorry..."_

_"I can take this."_

_"No, you can't."_

_"No one can carry the sea."_

_Kyuubou and Kyonda's frantic thoughts shot across my brain, showing me images of where they were and what they were doing. They were tailing Ammy. And Ammy was going straight for Mason.  
I don't know why, but I was scared. For Mason._

_What is she doing? Kyuubou and Kyonda told me._

_No! No, no, no, NO! MASON!_

"Kenya?" The captain's curious and worried voice broke me out of my memories.

_More like my nightmare,_ I thought, snorting.

Then I realized that everyone had broken the conversation and was staring at me, worried looks etched onto their faces. I was curled up, hugging my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth almost violently, eyes wide and quietly but frantically whispering, "No, no, no," over and over again to myself.

"I... I'm OK," I said, blinking as I realized there were tears in my eyes. I wiped them away and smiled the fake smile I had perfected over the years. "Really."

"Like hell you are," I heard Zoro-nii mutter. The others nodded in agreement. I sighed, knowing that they were right and that they wouldn't back down.

"Just gimme a minute then," I said. The others backed off, knowing that nothing would come of it if they questioned me now.

"I'm already dead," I whispered quietly to myself. "My emotions have abandoned me."

_"We are all dead from the moment we are born."_

I couldn't tell who told me that.

* * *

_Just a warning, the next couple chapters are a bit depressing. Don't worry, it'll get back up to cheerful and happy after a bit._

_Reviews/criticism/comments/questions?_

_Don't forget to check out Paths to a Dead Heart, Ryuu's counterpart to this story. It gives a different version of this story, kind of like xxxHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, if you know what I mean._

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	10. Chapter 10

Ok, Chappy 10~ U know wat's ironic...My story Paths to a Death Heart starts with my OC dead..=.='

~ Ryuu

_Yay, Ryuu's school has finally ended which means she can help me again. Me? I still have a week left till _I_ get out. =.='_

_Yes, this is quite a depressing chapter. And guess who the ? POV is! Answer in the author's notes at the end!_

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

* * *

**~Zoro's POV~**

_"We are all dead from the moment we are born."_

It's the journey that counts, because death will always be your destination. Your life is a countdown.

What you do before your time reaches zero is up to you.

**~Ammy's POV~**

I am already dead. It doesn't matter that I ate the life fruit.

_"We are all dead from the moment we are born."_

I will not die from being killed. Nor will fear, anxiety, or rashness be my end.

_"Because in the end, guilt will kill us all. So let us savor our last moments in a final embrace."_

**~?'s POV~**

My head hurts.

It's just the usual pain that comes every once in a while. I should be used to it, but pain is something nothing can ever become accustomed to. But the pain never shows. No one notices. No one ever does.

Tenshi is the only one who knows about my pains. He looks at me, worried. I look back at him, my face carefully blank as always, and shake my head to let him know that I'm OK. The way he looks at me tells me that he doesn't believe me.

I hear_ his _voice in my head again. It always happens when my head hurts. He tells me what to do, and I cant disobey. It's beyond frustrating.  
_Don't show your emotions,_ he tells me.

_I never do_, I tell him in my head.

_Then continue to do so,_ he answers. _And you have grown too attached to your "friends". They are only my pawns, you as well._

_I know, _I say. _My only friend is my mind, and I'm not even safe here._

_Ungrateful brat, _he snorts. _You are safer here than anywhere else._

_No, I have a safer sanctuary, _I tell him, triumphant. _I have a place that you have never dreamed of._

_Well then, I can't wait for the surprise_... He chuckles and the voice fades away. I shudder slightly. His presence is never pleasant. I retreat to the sanctuary I told him about.

My memories.

Before I met my friends that the voice claims are only his pawns, I have no memories of anything except of one girl. I had met my friends when I was huddled on the corner of a street, bruised, battered, and nothing. I had only my name, the clothes on my back, and the knowledge that there was a man in my head.

The girl that I remember... I can't even remember that much. Her name, her face, nothing. All I know is that she was more important than my life, she brought more joy than I had ever experienced, and that she knew my name. She is the only reason why I know even so much of myself.

_"Hey Mason!"_

**~Regular POV~**

The room containing the Straw Hat crew was filled with an unusual awkward silence. It was unusual because there was always at least one idiot making unnecessary noise, and awkward because no one wanted to disturb Kenya, yet they all wanted to comfort her in some way. The curiosity of _why_ she had begun crying in the first place was nearly visible in the air.

It was simply a show of how much Kenya had begun to affect the crew. When she was happy, the others were cheerful, even more so than usual, and would often do what they could to keep her happy. When she was sad, the others immediately became silent as if to accompany her in her roller coaster of emotions.

The door opened and Chieko and Hiromi walked in. Everyone looked up at them in unison, all in their own usual casual positions, but looking anything but normal.

"Pardon our intrusion," Chieko murmured quietly, bowing. Hiromi simply glared at them all, scowling as usual. "We have come with information about the third round."

"Alright!" Luffy said excitedly with his everyday vigor, suddenly energetic again. "What is it?"

"As usual, it's an elimination round," Hiromi said. "But this time, it's not against another crew. You'll be fighting against those who have already been disqualified. Each crew member, and yes, all have to participate, will be led into a room by themselves. Then the disqualified people will begin entering the room, sometimes one by one, other times in huge groups. Each participant will have to defeat a minimum of 50 people in order to advance into the next round. Each crew will need at least 5 members in the game in order to be able to fight in the next round."

"In short, this is testing your individual abilities of stamina and power," Chieko said. "This also tests your ability to trust your teammates to pass. If you are too busy worrying about the others, you will lose your focus and may slip up in a crucial moment."

"The third round will be held tomorrow," Hiromi said. "Rest up and prepare yourselves. This will be the toughest round so far." Chieko nodded in agreement and the two siblings left.

Silence returned to the room once more. Kenya's breathing slowed and became stabilized. She looked up with a small, pained smile on her face.

"Thanks guys," she said softly. "I... I'm OK now. I mean it. And I wish I could tell you guys why that happened... You guys have been really good to me, and..." She trailed off, not knowing how to continue.

"It's alright," Robin told her, just as softly. "We all have things that we don't want others to know. We can wait until you are ready to tell us."

"And don't worry about us treating you so well," Nami chirped. "We're all nakama. We all pull through together."

"Yeah, yeah!" Luffy said. Usopp and Chopper nodded their heads vigorously, Chopper less so due to his injuries.

"And if you wanna take your mind off of something, you can always try that puzzle I gave you for your birthday," Franky suggested. Kenya smiled at the thought. She hadn't touched the box in a while. It was a good idea.

"If you request so, I shall play some soothing music for you," Brook said, his usual gentlemanly self. "As an apology for my racket earlier in the day."

"We haven't eaten yet, huh," Sanji muttered, lighting a cigar. "I'll go get lunch ready then." The gluttons of the crew cheered and Kenya's smile grew a little wider and less forced. Kairi crooned as he perched on her shoulder, nuzzling his beak to her ear. Ammy rubbed her head against Kenya's hand and licked it, whimpering to let Kenya know that she was worried. Kenya placed a hand on Kairi's head and wrapped the other arm around Ammy's neck. She looked up in surprise when she felt a large hand resting on her head. She looked up and saw Zoro, who was looking away on purpose as if embarrassed. She grinned and let his hand stay on her head, but squeaked and pouted when he suddenly began mussing her hair.

"Next time you have something _that_ troubling on your mind that it shows through your oh-so-perfect facade," he murmured so that only she could hear, "Tell someone about it. Ammy, Kairi..."

"You?" Kenya added with a smirk as she began smoothing out her messed up hair. Zoro looked down in slight surprise.

"... Yeah," he muttered. "Me too."

**~Ammy's POV~**

I resisted the urge to tackle the swordsman and bite his face off for touching Kenya.

Why did I resist? Well, all the other crew members had comforted her in their own ways, so I decided to let him do it his way. As soon as Kenya was feeling normal again though, I would refuse to let him within three feet of Kenya.

After they exchanged some words that I had to strain my ears to hear, he left and I stared at him as Kenya curled up beside me, falling asleep. To my surprise, he glanced back, making eye contact with me. I lifted my lips in a small snarl, and he smirked, turning back to continue bickering with the cook. Or whatever he was doing.

I glared at him one last time before turning to Kenya. I had thought she was asleep, but turns out she was really just fiddling absently with the puzzle box. Her eyes were distant, even more so than usual. She appeared to be contemplating something.

"Kenya?" I asked softly. She snapped back into reality and looked at me.

"Eh? Oh..." The distant look returned to her eyes. "I was just thinking." I waited patiently, deciding that if she didn't continue I wouldn't prompt her to do so.

"About..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "Never mind. It's nothing important." I shrugged and lay my head on my crossed paws.

"Get some rest," I murmured. "We're gonna be fighting tomorrow." She nodded and put the box to the side, curling up beside me. She quickly fell asleep. I smiled. No matter how mature she acted and how much pain she endured, she was still a child. My good mood was ruined when Kairi perched on my shoulder, snickering.

"Kairi," I growled, but softly, so as not to wake Kenya up. "Get off of my before I eat you."

"You would've a long time ago if you were going to," he answered smugly. Smartass. "Besides, you'd wake Kenya up." I snorted and shook my head, not in the mood to deal with him.

"Get out of here," I mumbled. "Don't wanna deal with you right now." Surprisingly, he obliged and flew over to the tanuki reindeer. I stared at the box that Kenya had been struggling with earlier. I sighed and wished I could hear Oki's message for us.

"... Oki..."

**~Regular POV~**

Chieko and Hiromi led the Straw Hat crew out for their third round. Curious as to where it would take place, they were surprised to find themselves back inside the stadium where the first battle had taken place.

"I thought these were individual battles," Sanji stated. Chieko nodded.

"Make sure you stand on one of the red X's on the ground," Hiromi instructed. They obliged, finding themselves several meters apart from one another. Hiromi nodded to his sister, who had wandered off to the other side of the stadium. She flicked a switch as Hiromi backed out, taking his place next to her. There was a rumbling heard and the ground shook slightly as walls slowly began rising from the earth, separating each into their own room. Huge clouds of dust were kicked up from this.

"The battles will now begin," Hiromi announced. Doors leading to each room slid open, and each crew member took up their battle stance.

When the dust cleared up, they found themselves being stared down with thousands of hateful glares.

**~Zoro's POV~**

_Why the hell are they all so pissed? _I wondered absently as I slashed at another opponent. He joined the pile of limp bodies behind me as I hacked and slashed a bloody path. I dodged a punch and chopped the guy's neck as I suddenly realized why.

_Oh... We won and they lost._ Their only strength was in numbers. And they had a near unlimited amount of enemies. _I didn't know that many people got eliminated. Then again, they're so freaking weak it's not a wonder at all._

As another man fell at my feet, I was thinking that even Usopp should have no trouble completing the task of defeating fifty of these people.

**~Ammy's POV~**

Well this was boring. I hadn't even moved yet and I had already counted fifty limp bodies on the ground around me. I was just sitting there, surrounded by a ring of different elements (fire, ice, etc.) and the fools charged at me with no plan whatsoever. I knew why they lost.

Then again, they were rage and hate driven since they wanted vengeance against those who had, eh hem, apparently, taken their rightful positions in the tournament. Even if we hadn't been there, they would've lost like the pitiful bastards they were. Sighing, I allowed the elements around me to recede back into nothingness as I decided to have a little _fun_.

"Seventy one," I said cheerfully, pinning the nearest man to the ground. He fainted from shock and fright, poor thing. Pfft, as if. "Seventy two." A woman fell to the ground with three new bloody scars. "Seventy three." And so on and so forth.

I had immersed myself in a crowd of people all eager to get a nab at me. Too bad they were all weaker than the coward of our team. The others should have no problem dealing with them. Bored already, I leaped back and allowed the flames and walls of ice and other elements to leap up and eat away at the crowd. Absently, I licked the blood from my claws when the wind suddenly shifted. _Kenya_, I thought with a grim smile. I caught the scent of crushed pine needles and very, very faint mint, mixed in with an unknown scent that smelled of death and camellias. But the first scent I knew. It was _his _scent.

"Oki," I breathed. I immediately focused on my sense of smell but I could not catch anymore of the scent, since the scent of ashes and blood overpowered everything. I shook my head, clearing my head of all thoughts of him.

"He's dead," I reminded myself. No need to get sentimental when there were little peoples to fight.

**~Kenya's POV~**

From the scent of death and screams all around me, I could tell that I was the only one who had a single opponent to begin with. I put my hand on my hip and smirked at him, daring him to make the first move. He was a swordsman, judging from the weapon at his hip. There seemed to be a lot of those in this tournament. He narrowed his eyes and drew his katana.

"Let me ask you one thing," I said. "I don't care about your name or goals anything stupid like that. Other than revenge, what incentive did they give you to participate in this round even after disqualification?" He smirked.

"What made you think," he said, tossing his sword into the air, "that only losers were part of this?" He caught the spinning sword and dashed forward, almost a blur. I crouched and leaped into the air, somersaulting over his head. I landed with one foot first, pivoting so that I turned to face him again and shooting my other foot forward to keep from falling and kept charging towards him.

"Tag, you're it," I grinned as he, with shock on his face, jerked back. I leaned up towards him and tapped him on the shoulder, then grabbed both shoulders and flipped over him. "No tag-backs!" I yelled over my shoulder. He was now clearly annoyed at being toyed with what he probably viewed as a brat.

Yay for pissing people off! For some reason, I tend to make people think of me as a little brat. I wonder why.

"Tag, you're dead," he growled. I froze as I felt the cold metal of the sword pressed against my neck and I turned around, realizing that he was right behind me. I smiled cheerfully at him, pissing him off even more, and as he swung back to chop off my head (or whatever else he was planning), I ducked and swept my leg under him, knocking him off his feet.

"Tag!" I said happily, patting him on the head. I skipped away, snickering to myself. I turned around and called, "Hey, do you wanna see how long I can go without being caught?" He scowled at me as he picked himself up, flicking the dust off his sword. His grip shifted slightly, and I took it as a sign to get out of there, _fast_. One minute I was solid as could be, the next I was a blur changing into nothingness.

Yeah... That was definitely a good idea. Cause even though I shifted to air as quickly as I possibly could, I still got a cut on my hand. Only a small cut, to be sure, but _damn_ that guy was fast!

"Running away?" he grinned cockily, licking the small bit of blood off his sword.

"Not yet," I whispered, knowing full well that he, and probably everyone around, could hear.

**~Ammy's POV~**

OK, this was seriously getting ridiculous.

The first hundred or so people I fought were kinda fun, since it had been a while since I had gone fully berserk, slaughtering people left and right. But after the hundred and thirteenth one, it was getting pretty old. I was BORED.

For the past, what, fifteen minutes? I had been sitting inside my protective circle of elements, idly counting the number of bodies that joined the pile on the ground. By now, the ground was near covered with corpses or unconscious people, and those that were still standing had to pick their way across the bodies. I wondered if the unconscious ones would die of suffocation or from being trampled on.

There was one fool who wasn't watching the others around him and tripped over a fresh corpse on the ground, tumbling into the fire. I grimaced, hearing his twisted screams as his body turned to ash. Defeat number 147, 34th one to die from their own unawareness in that fashion. Really, by now, I didn't care who or what I killed. It wasn't heartless slaughter either: every time a person fell, I was reminded of the massacre of my pack. Each time, I wondered what friends or family, possibly lovers, they had that would mourn their loss. For every death, I would murmur an apology and whisper to myself that it was for survival.

Though few are actually glad to kill, take lives, however you wish to phrase it, I believe that none that have done so can deny the thrill they felt, the ecstasy at the realization that they had _power_, and with that power they could take lives easily. I know that I would be one of the first to admit that I had a certain guilty pleasure in taking lives. Such is the way of a fighter, and in some cases, a killer.

I wondered if I was slowly becoming a senseless murderer.

_"Not yet,"_ I heard Kenya whisper. Despite myself, I felt a smile creep onto my face, as it always does when I hear Kenya reassuring me. Though I was supposedly the parent, I felt like I was the one dependent on my child.

"Talk about reversal of roles," I muttered to myself, dousing the flames and melting the circle of ice around me. I shook the ashes from my fur and stepped out, ready to face whoever was to battle me next. It was then that I realized that as I had been lost in my thoughts, the enemies had stopped pouring in and one by one they had fallen to the floor. There was now only one person left. I grinned in my wolfish way.

"Why hello there."

**~Zoro's POV~**

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck... I had lost count of how many people I had defeated a long time ago, and I swore that I must have been hacking and slashing my way through the endless waves of enemies for hours. And being a swordsman, I wasn't allowed a moment of rest, since I always had to be alert. Then again, all close range fighters had to keep on their toes, while mid to long range people (Robin, Usopp, etc.), or all rounders like Kenya and Ammy could just sit back and pretty much watch the people drop dead.

I have near godly stamina (and yes, I'm very proud of it), but seriously. I have my limit. I could hardly even move my feet because of all the bodies piled around me, most of them bleeding and few actually dead, and people continued to flood in and surround me. I could-not-fucking-move! It's gotta be one of the most frustrating things in the world.

In the end, I figured I had to get a minute of rest since the adrenaline, already fading away, wasn't working anymore. I kicked a few of the bodies, which resulted in quite a few howls of pain and whimpers, forming a makeshift fortress of humans. I grimaced at the image, since being surrounded by a wall of bloody bodies piled on top of each other is not by any means a pretty sight.

But I ended up accomplishing my goal. My enemies took a while to get through, since many of the people I had used for my barrier were crew mates of those outside and they took pains to prevent any more harm from coming to the defeated ones. The less steely and more pathetic of the bunch was also frozen or screaming or showing some form of protest against my method. Hell, like I had a choice. Any longer and I would've dropped from exhaustion. And while that may have been good for them, I would prefer to stay alive and _not_ get trampled to bits by weaklings I could take on any day.

I sighed, sheathing my sword momentarily and sitting down, leg propped up with my sword resting against it. I stared up at the sky, grateful for the small moment of false peace. I took the moment to regather my thoughts.

Earlier (far, far, far earlier, like near the start) of the battle, I had heard Kenya's voice, resonating as it does when she becomes air, whispering, "Not yet." That was a strange thing to say and I made a mental note to ask her about it later.

I was startled out of my thoughts as a shadow suddenly blocked the sun from over head, and I instinctively rolled forward, narrowly dodging a knife thrown accurately at the spot where I had been just milliseconds before. Still crouched, my hands moved to my swords.

"I guess times up," I growled, pulling all three out in a swift movement, catching the third in my mouth as usual.

The blood rained once more.

* * *

ISH THE END OF SCHOOL AND ZEH CHAPPY! YAY! NO MORE FINALS AND HW! :3

~Ryuu

_DURURURURMROLL PL0X!_

_And if you guessed that the ? POV belonged to..._

_MASON!  
_

_You are correct!_

_And yes, I am aware that this was a really morbid and depressing/dark chapter. I can't remember when these stop being dark, but this mood continues for like another chapter or so. After that, it starts getting a little bit more lighthearted._

_By the way, don't forget to check out Ryuu's counterpart to this story, Paths to a Dead Heart. I'm not even going to bother explaining why any more, I'm just going to say you MUST READ IT. RAWR._

_Reviews/criticism/comments/questions?_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	11. Chapter 11

_Hey y'all! Get yourselves ready for another depressing chapter..._

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai_

OKI-KUN!

~ Ryuu_  
_

**

* * *

~Mason's POV~**

I'm watching them battle. We're sitting on the bleachers surrounding the stadium, along with most of the other teams that had made it to this round. We're watching to see what we're up against. We're next, I knew. There aren't that many people in the Straw Hat crew. Most of the other pirate crews have over twenty. Their strength is in numbers though. The Straw Hat crew is different. They run quality over quality, though from what I've seen of their captain, I don't think he really cares if they're strong fighters or not.

I'm trying to watch all of their battles equally, but I always find myself going back to the battle in the middle. There's only one person in that room, but there used to be two. The girl had disappeared. I'm still trying to find her. I remember that there had been a bird. I wonder what happened to it. Perhaps it isn't strong enough to fight, or it isn't a permanent member of the crew.

The most intense battles are definitely Zoro's, the swordsman I fought against, the captain's, and the man wearing all black who smoked and specialized in kicking. Yet the ones that seem to draw the most attention is the wolf's and the middle one with only one man. The wolf fought with a pattern: jump around, knocking and slashing everyone down, then retreat into an isolated area and erect a circle of elements around herself. I look at Shirayuki, who seems to be watching the wolf's every move. I'm not sure what she's thinking, but I can take a guess. Everyone in our crew knows about each other's pasts. Our crew is even smaller than the Straw Hats. Shirayuki is probably hoping that the wolf won't get injured. I sigh to myself. Even though her family was the one that...

A slight movement in the shadows nearby catches my eye. I don't suddenly jerk me head in that direction though. I know it might be nothing, and I don't want to cause a big commotion. From the corner of my eye, I can tell that there is something in the shadows, so it wasn't just my imagination. I turn my head slightly to get a better view, but I can still only manage to make out fuzzy silhouettes. I know that one is most likely _not_ human and that the other probably is. I can only make out two shapes, but there might be more hiding around. They don't seem to be planning anything dangerous though, so I ignore them. Well, I don't really ignore them. I still watch them from the corner of my eye, flicking a glance to that direction whenever something moves. But nothing really happens, so I relax slightly and return most of my attention to the battle unfolding in front of me.

I miss a lot of the battle while I was preoccupied with the shadows, because in the middle battle, the girl is back and the man is on the ground, defeated. I wonder how that happened, but I don't ask. I don't want anyone to know that I wasn't paying attention. The wolf also appears to have defeated her single opponent, but both the girl and wolf look tired and only more and more enemies are pouring in. I wonder to myself how many there are, and if I'll have to fight that many.

Secretly, I worry for the girl. I don't know why though.

**~Kenya's POV~**

In a few words, allow me to describe how I felt the moment I killed the swordsman by suffocating him.

Relief (you know, the kind you get when you've been at something and you finally get it over with and you're like, "FINALLY!"). Remorse at having taken another life. Happiness because of victory.

In a few more words, I will now proceed to describe how I felt when many, many, MANY people began flooding in through the doors.

HOLY SHIT THAT'S A LOT OF PEOPLE. Amazement. Shock. Then rage. LOTS AND LOTS OF RAGE. Pissed off. (How the fuck did these people expect us to defeat a literally INFINITE amount of people!) Unfairness. MUST KILL PEOPLE TO BURN OFF RAGE.

... Yeah, that's pretty much what happened in a few words. The long version? Oh boy, here we go...  
I stared at the swordsman's freshly dead body. It had taken longer and more energy than expected to defeat him, but that's what I get for fooling around. I kicked him, making sure that he was dead. Oh, he was dead alright. Very, very dead. I sighed a bit. A murderer at age twelve. Way to start life on the right path Kenya. I applaud you. Well, at least _that's_ over with.

While I was still contemplating over whether to be happy or sad over my kill, I heard something that resembled a herd of stampeding rhinos. I looked up and saw MILLIONS (no exaggerating here) of people running, pushing, shoving, and just _pouring_ out of the door. My eye twitched. The sight was disgusting and pitiful, like ants running from their destroyed anthill. Bone thin dogs fighting over a scrap of meat. And, like the ants, I had a sudden urge to rid all of them from my sight.

So I did.

First it was just impulse that made me attack them. But then it just became silly. This many people, and not a single one was a decent fighter. They had yet to even touch me. So far I had just stood where I was and knock everyone down with air, suffocating them if they came too close. Their weakness pissed me off. Suicidal people aren't the only ones who peeve me. There are those who always rely on others for strength and power, or those who can only fight if they have a good 20 or so people backing them up.

Unlucky people, all of them seemed to fit into both categories.

The way they dropped and fell unconscious or dead from suffocation or air pressure was like flies. I seem to be using lots of similes comparing these people to bugs. That's because that's all they are: insects. The bodies just kept on piling, and I began wondering if I blocked the door with bodies would the people keep on coming? I decided to test it out and concentrated more of my death air near the entrance.

And, what do you know? Those people are _really_ determined to get a piece of me. They kept pushing till they knocked the bodies over and kept running, only a few stopping to take care of the wounded, unconscious, or dying. Man, these people are heartless.

But my body wall idea stalled them for quite a bit, so that I had time to catch a two or three minute break. I decided to continue blocking the entrance, since it seemed to work.

By now I could use my powers with minimum thought, so I switched on the auto-pilot switch in my mind and my thoughts began to wander.

I looked down at my hands, and though they were clean, I felt dirty. It's simply what comes with being a fighter and murderer.

**~Regular POV~**

The battles were wrapping up. Chieko had wanted to end the round long ago, since all the members had already fought and beaten the "final boss" in a sense (the single person that was more powerful than the rest), but Hiromi insisted upon seeing the games to the finish. At last the crowds were thinning out and each "room" had fewer and fewer people until at last each contestant had plopped onto the ground, have defeated every single person. Their opponents surrounded them in a seemingly endless sea of bodies. Hiromi watched them, satisfied, while Chieko flinched at the sight. So many people, no matter how evil they were, had died pointlessly here today. If it was not family tradition and she had been forced to, Chieko would have never hosted these games. She simply wasn't suited to it, unlike her hardened brother. Speaking of him, he was now jumping off his high perch and made his way over to the switch, deactivating the walls that slowly sank back into the ground.

One by one, the members of the Straw Hat crew picked themselves off the ground and carefully traversed the battlefield to Hiromi and his sister, who soon joined him. They all had a grim look set on their face. Though they had tried not to mortally wound any of their opponents, they all knew that at least a handful had died, whether it was their fault or not.

"There is no point to this," Kenya murmured softly under her breath so that only a few people could hear, and even they had to strain their ears. Those who did hear, however, nodded in silent agreement, their eyes all locked on Hiromi. They were all judging this man who seemed far too accepting of the mass murder that had occurred that day. Then they realized that it wasn't that he was heartless or simply didn't care. It was that he didn't _want _to care, so that his guilty conscience would not get to him.

_This family tradition has made all of us uncaring and unfeeling_, Chieko thought. _Brother especially. Just a few years ago he would've been fighting against these games for all he was worth. Now... _She bit her lip, not sure of what she should say. Her brother spoke for her.

"Congratulations on passing the third round," he said, his voice not conveying any of the feelings of sentiment his words told. "You will be given two days to rest, since you went first and we still have to conduct the third round for several other teams. You are free to do as you will, so long as you do not disrupt the games or the town. Chieko will go to you tomorrow with information about the fourth round, which will be the quarter finals. That is all. You may go."

And they all did, silently, their souls mourning the losses of those who had passed on that day. Even Hiromi, for all his toughness and unfeeling coldness, felt the cold guilt creep into his heart and wrench it until he was sure that his conscience would strangle him.

**~Ammy's POV~**

This atmosphere was depressing. The silence was suffocating me. This usually overly-cheery crew, to the point of being annoying, was serious and quiet. And truth to tell, it was pissing me off more than their normal stupid antics.

"God dammit, you fools!" I finally snapped. "Get yourself together! We all regret what we've done, but what the hell can we do about it now? We of all people know that the past can't be changed, and the only thing we can do is look forward to the future and make sure we don't make the same mistake twice. So get over your brooding and sulking and move on!" Kairi fluttered to my shoulder and chirped in agreement.

There was an awkward silence as they processed my words, and the tension was broken as everyone was alerted to the fact that Kenya had fallen asleep long ago. How did we notice this? Well, she was sleep talking, as she often did.

"Cookies... Mr. Panda, do you have any? What about Mrs. Elephant? Mn..." She rolled over onto her side and continued mumbling unintelligible words.

There was another awkward silence, then snickering.

"What are you dreaming about, damn brat?" the swordsman said with a smirk, flicking Kenya's sleeping forehead. I snarled at him.

"Don't touch her," I growled. "And at least she doesn't sleep more than the rest of us combined, unlike you."

"I don't talk in my sleep though," he retorted. But he backed away anyways.

"Oh, and how are you so sure about that Marimo-head?" the cook challenged. "Should we record you as you sleep? Your snoring is a million more times as annoying as Kenya-chan's talking!"

"Shut up, you're even worse than I am, perverted cook!" Zoro yelled back.

And with that, the atmosphere shifted, changing into what usually surrounded the Straw Hat crew: happiness, optimism, and forever stupid.

Kenya wasn't through with her sleep talking though. She continued to mumble words, some made up but a few that were understandable.

"Tiger relay... Have fun... Ms. Palm Tree, don't lose...!" I smiled at the nonsensical words, but the smile was wiped off my face at the next name.

"Mason..."

The swordsman stopped bickering with the cook and looked at her, surprised. I glanced over at him, wondering why he was staring at her.

"She knows that kid?" he asked me.

"Mason?" I answered, wanting clarification. "What do you know about him?"

"He was the kid I fought in the second round," he replied. "I don't think the kid recognized Kenya though..."

This piece of information was overwhelming. Mason. Was it the same Mason? I tried to remember what the swordsman's opponent had looked like, and finally gave up.

"What did he look like? His personality?" I questioned. Zoro was confused but continued to answer.

"He had messy brown hair and green eyes. He was really fast and agile, strong too." That didn't describe the Mason I knew. The boy _did_ have brown hair and green eyes, but I remembered him as a klutz. "But his sword was unsteady," the swordsman continued. "Swordsmen can tell what their opponent is like from their fight. He was strong, but he was unsure of what to do or about himself. I felt like I was fighting another person, not him. It was like there was someone telling him what to do." I thought about this. That would explain the change. Maybe he didn't remember anything about his past or Kenya, so he did not recognize her. Something must've happened to him. And his klutziness might've been fixed through extensive training. It was possible, just possible.

"Don't speak of this to Kenya," I said finally. "Unless I tell you to, this is never to be spoken of again. Not his name, not your fight, not her sleep talking, nothing. Is that clear?"

"Can I know why?" Zoro asked gruffly. I shook my head firmly, and he grunted. "Fine. But I expect there to be a good reason for this, even if I'm not informed what it is."

"Believe me," I growled. "There is."

**~Zoro's POV~**

OK... So that was weird. The damn brat mentions the kid's name in her sleep, I comment on it, and the wolf totally freaks out and makes me swear not to mention the kid's name ever again in front of Kenya. Without an explanation. Well, that's great.

I sighed and glared at the perverted cook one last time before deciding to catch some rest. Irritatingly enough, when I sat down on the bench to being sleeping, I found that I couldn't do so. That had never been a problem for me before, so it was especially strange. Grumbling to myself, I turned over on my side and decided to spend the time sorting out some thoughts to see if that would help.

The battles so far... That had been preoccupying my mind so far for the past few days, and I can say with little doubt that I wasn't the only one. The first one had gone without much to complain about. I had gotten some nice battles, few deaths, if any, and it was great over all.

The second one was where the trouble started coming in. Apparently this kid Mason was someone that either Kenya or Ammy, if not both, had known in their pasts. And the kid was on par in skill level with me. It's not everyday that I meet a swordsman at my skill level, and if we had fought to our most potential, the chances of both of us surviving were not very big numbers.

So I fight a kid who seems to be emotionless and extremely skilled, and it's treason to mention his name in from of the brat. OK, no biggie.

Third round. The biggest problem of them all. Everyone had participated, and way too much pointless bloodshed had come out of it. And the worst part is, we caused it and we all know that even more blood and lives will be taken.

And hell, this was all a _game_.

Fuck whoever said that violence is fun. This is just fucking morally wrong, and coming from me, who really doesn't give a damn about this shit one way or another, that's just plain sick.

And another thing. It's one thing to pretend like you're not affected and hide all of your discomfort and disgust behind a mask of coldness, like Hiromi, but it's another damn thing entirely to _enjoy_ this murder. I didn't, sure as hell. I just worry about those who seem like they did. And they know who they are, and they feel guilty about it. I'm not worrying about their guilt crushing them. I'm worrying about their mental stability and saneness.

Take Ammy for example. She's a little less unacceptable as a murderer, cause, well, for one, she's a _wolf_. An animal. She kills to survive, be it for food or territorial reasons or whatever. So even though it's still not right, I can be a little less uptight about her.

But _Kenya_. She's a fucking _twelve year old girl_. There's something not quite right about a girl who's barely twelve that enjoys bloodshed and murder. Sure, she may not be entirely crazy about it now, but that's because she knows that people expect her to be grossed out by this stuff, not excited about it. So she controls herself. Just enough so that she doesn't go nuts. But one day, I swear, she's gonna snap or slip, and then there's no going back for her.

So who's left with making sure that _doesn't_ happen? Not Ammy for sure, since she sure isn't any better than her daughter. Kairi can't communicate with her all the time. Luffy's an idiot at times, Nami's greed would rub off on the kid, the perverted cook would _not_ be a good influence, Usopp would be too cowardly, Chopper's more innocent than the damn brat, Robin is way too morbid to be good, Franky is a freaking speedo wearing cyborg for crying out loud, and Brook is a skeleton that's a pervert underneath his apparent gentleman demeanor. And me? I...

…

Damn, looks like I'm stuck with the job.

**~Regular POV~**

The rest of the day passed with little event. Gradually, the crew had regained their good spirits, thanks to Ammy's little pep talk, and by dinner they were back to their noisy, cheerful selves. The most important occurrence was probably Ammy informing the others not to mention Mason while around Kenya. While none of them knew the reason for this, they all knew that the answer would probably come with due time and that obeying the wolf was the best course of action for now.

Unanimously, they agreed not to go watch the other fights in the third round. More bloodshed was not needed, and if it was going to happen anyways, the least they could do was not watch it. It's not like they could do much to stop it, as they were a part of the cause.

The only real change within the crew was that Zoro began to discreetly keep an eye on Kenya. He knew the chances of her being able to contain her lust for blood, and they weren't favorable. Although he trusted in her abilities of self-control, not many can go through what she had and last. He knew. He was one of those few that barely managed, but once you got through, it was a smooth ride from then onwards.

In any case, no one noticed that he was watching over Kenya. Well, that isn't entirely true. Kairi noticed, but he decided to keep quiet about it, knowing that it was for a good reason in the end. And Ammy knew that there was something off about the swordsman, yet she couldn't pinpoint it. She decided to write it off as nothing, much as she had written off what she had imagined was Oki's scent.

"Hey guys, what do you wanna do tomorrow?" Kenya asked after they had finished dinner, and they were now making their way back to their room.

"Good question," Nami mused. "How about we just go and explore the city a bit? And Kenya-chan, I think you'd better keep an eye on Zoro. He'd get lost and none of us feel like dealing with him, so..."

"You stick him with me, huh?" Kenya said rhetorically, raising an eyebrow. "It's OK anyways. I wasn't planning to do much, so I guess following him around shouldn't be too hard."

"I swear to the DEVIL, if you so much as lay a finger on her..." Ammy growled threateningly.

"Shut the hell up you paranoid, overprotective wolf," Zoro shot back, but secretly he thanked Nami for unwittingly giving him the chance to continue watching over Kenya.

"It's OK Ammy, I doubt that Zoro-nii would do anything to me," Kenya said. Zoro blinked. He hadn't expected for Kenya to defend him.

"He'd be too busy getting lost," she finished. Zoro sweat dropped.

_Why did I expect any different...

* * *

_

_Yes Zoro, why any different? And doesn't Ammy have kickass pep talking skillz? :P_

_If you've noticed, the writing style for Mason's POV is quite different. I guess I wanted a change and it worked out nicer than I expected. I think I might keep it that way._

_Don't forget to read Paths to a Dead Heart, especially since in this chapter, Mason and the other characters made some reference to Oki (whoops, spoilers XP), who is one of the main characters of that story. Paths to a Dead Heart is the counterpart to Peace in a Pirate's Heart, so GO READ IT. NAO. :D_

_Reviews/comments/questions/suggestions/criticism? (I swear, this list of insert/thing/here gets longer every time...)_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


	12. Chapter 12

_Haha, this chapter is has lots of Kenya's sarcasm, which Ryuu and I absolutely love. :3_

_Enjoy!_

_-Kai  
_

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* * *

~Kenya's POV~**

"Wandering. Yay. My favorite activity," I drawled in monotone. "Especially when we're in a damn dark, endless alleyway because a certain someone decided to go and get himself lost, forcing me to go look for him."

"Shut the hell up, I get it!" Zoro-nii growled. "It's my fault, OK?"

"Sure. Remind me again how you managed to get us here? Oh, no wait, even better. Remind me how to get out of here."

"Your sarcasm is not funny."

"It wasn't sarcasm, it was asking you a rhetorical question," I answered. "So we've been in the city for about, what, five minutes? And here we are. What the hell were you doing anyways?"

"Shut. Up."

"Uh huh. I don't see how you could possibly get us any more lost... Wait, I take that back. I can totally see you getting us to the other side of the Grand Line. Thank _God_ you're not the navigator."

OK, so I was being kind of mean today. But I was feeling cranky because we... No, not we. _Zoro-nii_ had somehow managed to get us... Well, you know by now.

"Well if you're so smart, why don't you find a way out of here?" he snapped, stopping in mid-stride to turn around and glare at me. "Go turn into air, and that power you would _not_ have gotten without me, thank you very much, and tell me where we are."

I stared at him like he was crazy. You know, the face of absolute disbelief where it looks like the person receiving the face has just asked the impossible/stupid/crazy of you.

"You do realize that we're on _break_ right?" I asked rhetorically. "Though you probably don't know the meaning of the word, seeing as how you're either on break everyday or never. I've never seen you do anything other than eat, sleep, drink booze, or train. But that's besides the point. Why the hell should _I_ have to do all the work for _your_ mistakes?"

"I dunno, maybe because you were stuck with me for a reason?" he grunted back, starting to walk again. "Aren't you supposed to keep me from getting lost?"

"How the hell was I supposed to know that you would disappear as soon as I turn around to ask a person what was new in the city?" I grumbled, following him. "Not to mention that I spent most of those five minutes tracking you down. When I found you, you were already in here!"

"Gah, whatever, you win, you win," he snarled. "Let's just get out of here."

"I'd love too, but I see a problem with that. I don't exactly see how we're getting any closer to the exit by walking in a straight line."

"Must you constantly pester me by criticizing my every statement?"

"Maybe."  
"... You're impossible," he sighed in exasperation, throwing his hands up. "I swear, sometimes you're worse than that perverted cook!"

"Whoa, whoa!" I exclaimed. "Sanji-nii's a great guy and all, but knowing how much you guys hate each other, I don't think I'm _that_ bad!"

"Well your personality changes are worse than Nami's mood swings," Zoro-nii said. "One moment you're bugging me to train with you, the next you're laughing your head off. One minute you're depressed, the next you're bloodthirsty, then asleep, and now you're pestering me about how I don't know the meaning of the word 'break'!"

"... OK, I'd have to agree with you on that one. My personality is pretty inconsistent," I agreed. "Can you really blame me though, knowing who and what I grew up with?"

"No," he admitted. "I can see where you get each aspect from."

"Now then, aren't we getting along nicely," I muttered sarcastically. "And I think I see something that isn't black and darkness! That means we're almost out of this endless hell! Yay!"

There were several peaceful minutes in which the only noise was our feet on the concrete.

"... What the hell. It's not getting any brighter or bigger."

"Thank you for stating the obvious."

More minutes of walking.

"Do I have permission to completely obliterate this alleyway?" I growled at last. We had been walking for a good twenty minutes and we _still_ weren't out of this cursed tunnel... thing.

"No, we'll have to pay for the damage costs," Zoro-nii answered. "We don't want Nami getting pissed at us for wasting her precious money."

"Eh, she'll get enough out of the tournament anyways," I muttered. "Seriously though, what the hell is wrong with the people who built this thing? I do not see the purpose of constructing a never-ending pathway with a single point of light that only gives false hope to those trapped within it. What the hell is that thing anyways?"

"If I knew, I would've shut you up a long time ago by telling you what it is," came his reply. "God DAMMIT, how long is this fucking road?"

"Y'know, this would go a lot faster if we started running."

"Y'know, this would go a lot faster if you actually went with my idea of you turning into air to find out how long this damn thing is."

"Actually, that's a good idea," I mused. "I could just re-materialize outside of this cursed alley and leave you stranded here for all eternity. Or at least until you finally walk yourself out of here."

"Do it and you die."

"I wouldn't. You'd have to get out of here first." A pause. He didn't reply. "Oooh, got ya there, didn't I?"

"This is boring as hell," he sighed. "Do you have anything to do that will get us thinking about something _other_ than walking for days? Cause we're just gonna continue arguing with each other if we go on like this."

"What's wrong with what we're doing right now?" I countered. "I thought we were getting along pretty well."

"No. Just... no."

"Fine, be a spoilsport and kill my fun," I mumbled. "Uh... OK, I'm gonna describe someone in our crew using two vague words and you'll have to guess who it is."

"Go for it," he answered.

"Hm... Contrastingly morbid."

"Robin," he answered immediately. "That was easy. She's the only one who's morbid in the crew. Everyone else is..." He searched for the right word.

"Idiotic?" I suggested.

"Good enough," he agreed. "Alright, my turn. Consistently inconsistent."

"Damn, that's a hard one," I muttered.

"Want a hint?" he asked. I shook my head, wanting to figure this out for myself. It was also the perfect chance to analyze each of my nakama.

Captain... He was pretty consistent. Super happy, kinda dumb, but a great leader who will stand up for his friends and fight to his death for them. Though he might grate on the nerves of some, usually people end up (reluctantly) admitting that he's a good guy.

Zoro-nii was the same. He was serious, and his life was based on some simple basics: eat, sleep, drink, train, fight, repeat in no certain order. He's certainly not afraid to beat the hell out of anyone that so much as looks at him cross-eyed, though I think he'd be a little more tolerant than that.

Nami-nee, on the other hand, wasn't as predictable as the first two, what with her mood swings and all.

…

Hang on, on second thought, yeah, she's pretty predictable. Money loving (and I still wonder where she gets that from), short tempered Nami-neechan. Show her something scary or gross, and she's about as bad as Usopp. She's more interested in saving her own hide, but she's tougher than your average girl, and she won't hesitate to fight along with us.

…

Well, maybe she'd need a little encouragement, but still.

Moving on to Usopp. Just like the others, his actions are no big surprise. He's a coward, there's no denying that, and a giant pessimist, but I can't really hold it against him. It brings some change to the crew, since the first three are all fearless, Nami-nee with money as an incentive. It's nice to know what a _normal_ person would think and react like to certain things.

His Sogeking persona is rather interesting. I had discovered that in our first battle together against the Marines, and I had asked him. He explained to me that Sogeking was like the hero he wanted to become, and some stuff like that. All in all, he's pretty predictable too. Your typical brave superhero.

Sanji-nii was definitely not on the list of "consistently inconsistent." His personality, too, could be broken down into a few words. Loves woman, very passionate, loves to cook, determined once he's set his mind on something, and sure as hell won't back down from a fight. He's one of those people where you go, "_How _did I know you were going to say that?"

Chopper-kun is quite predictable as well, and I'm aware that I'm overusing that word. That's cause we haven't gotten to the people who _aren't_ predictable. Anyways, Chopper-kun is, in a word, naive. He's naive to the point where you can't believe that he's 15, and that fact pisses you off because he's like a three year old. He's also gullible enough to believe Usopp, though I could say the same about Captain. He's shy and tries to act tough (failing miserably, of course), and in the end you just gotta admit: the naivety is kinda cute but annoying after a while.

Robin-neechan, though you might think that she's unexpected, is actually as predictable as the first six, at least to me. She's morbid, something that I can't say anything against since I'm even worse than her, but she states the truth and she's certainly not shy. Her seriousness is almost funny at times, and when she says scary things with a smile, you get that feeling where you have to back away from the person. Like, far, far away.

Franky-san... was Franky. Consistently so. There isn't much to say about a speedo-wearing cyborg that has a tendency to yell, "SUUUUPAAAAH!" and do little dance moves, whip out a guitar from nowhere and start crying as he sings a song, has different personalities depending on the drink that he's using, and is obsessed with COLA.

Brook-san was a perverted, gentlemanly, living skeleton. I realize how many contradictions there are in that one sentence.

…

MOVING ON.

Ammy... Good old Ammy. A definite possibility on the list. NOT. She's overprotective, grouchy, violent, and blood thirsty, as much as I love her. What else is there?

Kairi I know less about, although he's my brother figure. So if I, who can understand him most of the time, don't know about him, what are the chances that Zoro-nii is talking about Kairi? I have my doubts that Zoro-nii is even aware of Kairi's existence...

OK, so that leaves... Me.

Total facepalm moment. How did I _not_ see that one coming?

"... It's me isn't it?" I groaned, wondering how I could've been so blind. And I had to go through all that too...

"Yeah," Zoro-nii said, amusement tinting his voice. "Took you a while too. It was quite peaceful for several moments. Shame that that has to end."

"... I'm going to ignore that statement."

"You do that."

"Zoro-nii, is it just me or is that shiny thing not in the center of the path?" I asked curiously as I noticed that the light was indeed not coming from in front of us, but rather to our right. It appeared to be stuck into the wall.

"Yeah, I noticed that too," he answered. "It's getting bigger too. I think we're almost there. We can go check it out later."

"Right, right," I said. "So it's my turn right? Hm... Contradicting existence."

"Quit choosing easy ones," Zoro-nii complained. "Brook." I grinned and skipped ahead, as we finally reached the shiny object.

"What the hell?" he muttered. I agreed with the statement.

The shiny "object" was not an object. It was, in fact, a door with bright light pouring out of it. It was quite blinding to look at it. I searched for something to toss inside experimentally and found a rock. I kicked it in and we watched it fall into a seemingly endless abyss. We looked at each other in unison.

"... I'm guessing we're not walking through there," Zoro-nii muttered. I nodded and we kept on walking, remembering to tell the others about this mysterious door later.

**~Sanji's POV~**

I was at the island's marketplace searching for a place that sold cheap meat, seeing as how our entire crew adores it, when I had a sudden feeling that something big had happened. I paused for a moment, looking left and right, past the groceries that I held in my arms, wondering what it was. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper had all gone off to play and shop, Nami-san and Robin-san were shopping for clothes, Franky was looking for supplies to fix our battered ship with, and more cola, Brook was at a music store as far as I knew... Ammy and the bird had stayed back at the room and weren't doing anything that I knew of...

"OH THAT SHITTY SWORDSMAN!" I yelled, coming to a realization. I ducked behind a stand quickly before I caught anyone's attention, dragging the food with me. "That shitty swordsman better had not done anything to Kenya-chan," I growled to myself. My uneasy feeling didn't disappear and in fact grew stronger, and with the fact that Kenya-chan was alone with Zoro right now and nobody else could be in danger in mind, I ran off to drop the food off with Ammy and Kairi and search for Kenya.

**~Ammy's POV~**

Kairi had finally decided to go away and take a quick flight when the idiot perverted cook came bursting in, flustered and spluttering. He dropped the many bags he was carrying, and I presumed that food was in all of them. I was more curious about what had caused him to be in this current state though.

"Ah, ero-cook," I said at his arrival. "What's up? You look messed up."

"I just got a really bad feeling," he told me. I sweat dropped. So flustered over a simple feeling...

"And I just felt that someone was in danger," he continued. "The others can't be in any danger that I can think of, and right now I just remembered that Zoro and Kenya-chan are alone. Those two told us that they'd just be wandering around so I don't know where they are or what they're doing. I think something might've happened to them!"

"Specifically Kenya, right?" I growled. _Now_ he was talking my language. If that stupid swordsman had done anything to Kenya, I would personally rip out his liver and feed it to him. "Alright, let's go. I'll sniff Kenya out." Sanji nodded at me and we left the room and went into the marketplace, relying on my nose. Her scent took us past the marketplace and continued into an alley way. I could see no end to it.

"I don't think she would've gone this way," Sanji muttered. "C'mon, let's go." He took a few steps but I was still suspicious of the alleyway.

"Think about it," I argued. "It would be the perfect place to do something to her. Besides, her scent leads straight into here. Even if nothing happened to Kenya that was the swordsman's fault, then he still may have gotten lost in here and made Kenya follow him in. Either way, it's most logical to think that Kenya's in here."

"Yeah, but it looks like it goes forever!" Sanji protested. "Look!" He grabbed a rock and kicked it. We listened to it clatter down the alleyway. There were no sounds of stopping or hitting a wall.

"So I guess we'll just have to run," I growled, and ended the argument by running in there without waiting for him. He followed, but was still reluctant.

We were right. The alleyway had almost no end.

**~Kenya's POV~**

We were walking along peacefully, having left the door behind long ago and my anger having died down after the game. We were now just chatting about whatever came into our heads when suddenly, a random rock came out of nowhere and hit Zoro-nii right on the head.

**~Regular POV~**

"OW! WHAT THE HELL!"

**~Ammy's POV~**

The yell echoed down to us. We exchanged glances and nods, knowing that it was Zoro. Judging from the timing and wording, the rock that Sanji had kicked has probably hit him or something. Serves him right, for leading us all down here.

"His voice was really far off," Sanji commented. I agreed, but neither of us slowed down. We only screeched to a halt when we noticed a door randomly there.

"What the fuck?" Sanji muttered, raising an eyebrow.

"Indeed," I answered. "I doubt they went down here. C'mon, let's go. We can come back here later." We were off running again.

* * *

_Hehe, yeah. This was a really fun chapter. Be sad though, because the end of the pre-written chapters is coming to an end soon. :( That means you have to wait very, very long for these chapters to come out now. Yeah, I know. I'm a lazy writer, but motivation from Ryuu (more like, GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT AND WRITE WOMAN ) helps me keep up. It would help if you guys give your opinion too. :3_

_Read Ryuu's counterpart to this story, Paths to a Dead Heart. DO. IT. NOW. LYK, **NAO**. D:_

_Reviews/comments/questions blah blah blah... Criticism and whatever.  
_

_-Air Beast_

_(KAI)  
_


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